Basic Spatiotemporal Gait Variables of Young and Older Healthy Volunteers Walking Along a Novel Figure-of-8 Path

Abstract

Background: Locomotion along curved trajectories requires fine coordination among body segments. Elderly people may adopt a cautious attitude when steering. A simple, expeditious, patient-friendly walking protocol can be a tool to help clinicians. We evaluated the feasibility of a procedure based upon a newly designed Figure-of-eight (nFo8) path and an easy measurement operation.Methods: Sixty healthy volunteers, aged from 20 to 86 years, walked three times at self-selected speed along a 20 m linear (LIN) and the 20 m nFo8 path. Number of steps, mean speed and walk ratio (step length/cadence) were collected. Data were analysed for the entire cohort and for the groups aged 20–45, 46–65, and >65 years.Results: There was no difference in mean LIN walking speed between the two younger groups but the oldest was slower. During nFo8, all groups were slower (about 16%) than during LIN. Cadence was not different across groups but lower during nFo8 in each group. Step length was about 8% shorter in the two younger groups and 14% shorter in the oldest during nFo8 compared to LIN. Walk ratio was the smallest in the oldest group for both LIN and nFo8.Conclusions: A complex nFo8 walking path, with fast and easy measurement of a simple set of variables, detects significant differences with moderate and large effects in gait variables in people >65 years. This challenging trajectory is more revealing than LIN. Further studies are needed to develop a quick clinical tool for assessment of gait conditions or outcome of rehabilitative treatments.

Curve Walking Reveals More Gait Impairments in Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment than Straight Walking: A Kinect Camera-Based Study

“…The values listed in Table 2 have been adjusted for BMI, in line with findings from Zhou et al (2020) [ 32 ]. In contrast, the higher values reported by Zancan et al (2021) did not account for such confounders [ 33 ].…”

Frailty Syndrome as a Transition from Compensation to Decompensation: Application to the Biomechanical Regulation of Gait

“…Cadence appears to be maintained or even increased in non-frail older adults with a range of 103-125 steps/min [25,27,28,28,30,32] and decreases with frailty to a range of 85-109 steps/min [11,24,27,54,57]. The walk ratio tends to decrease with aging from approximately 0.37 in young adults to 0.32 m/s in older adults [30,58] and is not typically used in frailty research. Acceleration magnitude can be quantified by the root mean square (RMS), but magnitudes may not be comparable between sensors placed at different locations on the body.…”