Body Acceleration as Indicator for Walking Economy in an Ageing Population

Abstract

BackgroundIn adults, walking economy declines with increasing age and negatively influences walking speed. This study aims at detecting determinants of walking economy from body acceleration during walking in an ageing population.Methods35 healthy elderly (18 males, age 51 to 83 y, BMI 25.5±2.4 kg/m2) walked on a treadmill. Energy expenditure was measured with indirect calorimetry while body acceleration was sampled at 60Hz with a tri-axial accelerometer (GT3X+, ActiGraph), positioned on the lower back. Walking economy was measured as lowest energy needed to displace one kilogram of body mass for one meter while walking (WCostmin, J/m/kg). Gait features were extracted from the acceleration signal and included in a model to predict WCostmin.ResultsOn average WCostmin was 2.43±0.42 J/m/kg and correlated significantly with gait rate (r2 = 0.21, p<0.01) and regularity along the frontal (anteroposterior) and lateral (mediolateral) axes (r2 = 0.16, p<0.05 and r2 = 0.12, p<0.05 respectively). Together, the three variables explained 46% of the inter-subject variance (p<0.001) with a standard error of estimate of 0.30 J/m/kg. WCostmin and regularity along the frontal and lateral axes were related to age (WCostmin: r2 = 0.44, p<0.001; regularity: r2 = 0.16, p<0.05 and r2 = 0.12, p<0.05 respectively frontal and lateral).ConclusionsThe age associated decline in walking economy is induced by the adoption of an increased gait rate and by irregular body acceleration in the horizontal plane.

Walking as a Contributor to Physical Activity in Healthy Older Adults: 2 Week Longitudinal Study Using Accelerometry and the Doubly Labeled Water Method

“…The results of a previous study suggested that subjects with different walking economy produce different acceleration outputs [ 17 ]. This might have implications on the relationship between PAL and activity counts.…”

“…The population included 35 subjects from a previous study and 7 subjects with similar characteristics [ 17 ]. All 42 healthy subjects (19 males and 23 females) aged between 51 and 84 years (mean body mass index 25.6 kg/m 2 [SD 2.6]) were recruited by advertisements in local newspapers ( Table 1 ).…”

“…Such data were used to define parameters of the algorithm used to detect walking activities. A personalized template prototype of the acceleration signal was derived from the treadmill data for each subject, as described before [ 17 ]. Accelerometer data were analyzed as vector magnitude and segmented into epochs of 5 seconds.…”

Relationship of the sacral slope with early gait derangements in robust older women

“…The tests were performed on a level and clear 30-m corridor, with 1.5-m space for acceleration and deceleration, and without encouraging words. Gait speed between 0.90-1.42 m/s has been considered adequate for the walking economy during the ageing process [18,19]. Berg Balance Scale validated to Brazilian Portuguese [20] was used to assess functional balance performance; and was based on 14 questions with answers ranging from 0 to 4 points.…”

A possible mechanism of horseback riding on dynamic trunk alignment

“…In this study, surface EMG was used to measure the muscle activity which indicates how a rider's dynamic trunk alignment improves from horseback riding. Exploratory data analysis was performed using accelerometers, which is a popular method in the kinesiological field [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. In this study, we measured acceleration and angular velocity simultaneously, enabling analysis of the rectilinear and rotational motions of the horse and rider to elucidate the aforementioned mechanism.…”