I’ve read a few articles about it but it’s just not clicking for me.
I guess I’ve also just been watching too much House, and don’t understand why he would use it in the wrong hand either (there’s an episode about it so presumably it’s known in the series that it should be in the other hand).
In: Biology
Picture standing normally with two legs. If you lifted one leg without repositioning the other you would fall to the side; both legs are providing horizontal stability as well as vertical support.
Now imagine one of your legs is weak and you are striding forward with it. The other good leg is behind you, but your weak leg isn’t quite strong enough to support you. Let’s say the leg and cane are going to share the load 50/50.
If you used the cane on the side which is bad then you have shifted your point of balance even more to that side. If you used the opposite arm from your bad leg the point of balance between them is centered on your body and to won’t tend to tip over.
Balance. Remember, your arms swing opposite your legs for balance. If you have the cane on the same side as the bad leg, your arms has to swing the same as the leg instead. And when you move, with the cane opposite, your center of gravity stays between the two contact points (foot and cane tip), instead of being off to one side. It’s pretty awkward to walk with the cane on the same side.
Source: Sometimes I have to use a cane.
Somewhat unrelated to your question, but since you mentioned House as an example of incorrect cane usage, I’d like to clarify that House is actually using it on the correct side.
You usually use it on the opposite side when an injury affects your gait, to use it as a point of counterbalance, like another user already explained.
House has a muscular injury in his lower thigh, his gait is not affected by it. The only reason he has a cane is because he can’t put too much weight on the leg without being in extreme pain, so he puts the excess weight on his arm instead, through the cane.
That’s also why in season 2, when they temporarily cure his leg pain, he doesn’t need the cane.
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