Effect of Gait Alteration on Fatigability during Walking in Adult Women with High Body Fat Composition

Abstract

Background and Objective: The risk factors for injury due to alterations in gait efficiency and fatigability during walking are a rising concern. Therefore, the aims of this study were to characterize the changes in gait pattern and performance fatigability among adult women with a high body fat percentage and to study the association between the gait pattern and performance fatigability during walking. Materials and Methods: A total of 160 adult women were enrolled in the study and were divided into two groups: a high-body-fat percentage group (HBF; n = 80; fat% = 42.49 ± 3.51) and a comparison group with a normal body fat percentage (NBF; n = 80; fat% = 29.68 ± 4.30). The 10 min walking test (10-MWT) was used to measure performance fatigability. Treadmill-based gait analysis was used for the acquisition of gait parameters. The correlation between the variables was examined using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Forward stepwise linear regression was carried out to examine the association between all independent variables, and performance fatigability was adjusted for age and height. The level of statistical significant was set at p-value < 0.05 in all analyses. Results: The mean performance fatigability during the 10-MWT was reported to be high (1.4 ± 0.13) among the participants with HBF, as compared with a fatigability of 1.25 ± 0.11 in the NBF group. The data analysis of the spatial parameters indicated that stride length and step length were statistically smaller in the participants with HBF, as compared with the NBF group. The effects of average maximum force, speed, cadence, step length, and stride length explained the variation in the performance fatigability by 61% (p = 0.007). Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that gait alteration due to excess body fat induced a reduction in performance, as reflected by the high fatigability performance during walking. The study demonstrated a significant association between the severity of performance fatigability and spatial gait parameters.

Gait Analysis, Metabolic Parameters and Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Compared with Healthy Controls: A Pilot Study

“…Weight management is essential for better glycemic control [36]. Body weight and body composition have previously been associated with changes in gait parameters in obesity [37]. A common phenomenon in the elderly is the coexistence of increased body weight and sarcopenia [38] affecting gait abnormalities, such as stride length and gait line length [39].…”

“…Adherence to the MedDiet was assessed with the MedDiet Score questionnaire, which recorded consumption of the 11 major components (unrefined grains, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, legumes, olive oil, fish, red meat, poultry, full-fat dairy products and alcohol) in a face-to-face interview with a qualified dietitian. The MedDiet score is categorized as no adherence (0-13), inadequate adherence (14-27), satisfactory adherence (28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41), and very good adherence (42-55) [19].…”

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

“…The numerical values for the gait parameters obtained in Tables 2-4 and Figures 2-4 agree with what has been reported in the literature, as will be illustrated in the short review in the following. The average preferred walking speed gradually decreases with age [34] from a typical range of 1.20-1.40 m/s in young adults [28,32,53] to a range of 1.00-1.25 m/s in non-frail older adults [25][26][27][28]30,32] and is reduced to a range of 0.50-0.97 m/s below functional levels with frailty [1,11,24,27,54]. The value of 0.8 m/s has been reported as a threshold to distinguish between frail and non-frail older adults [1].…”

“…The value of 0.8 m/s has been reported as a threshold to distinguish between frail and non-frail older adults [1]. It is welldocumented, although poorly understood, that step length decreases with aging [26,34] from a range of 65-77 cm in young adults [32,53,55] to a range of 56-69 cm in non-frail older adults [11,25,27,28,30] to a range of 49-57 cm with frailty [11,24,27,54]. The evolution of cadence is less clear [34].…”

“…The evolution of cadence is less clear [34]. Typical values for cadence are 102-117 steps/min in young adults [32,53,55,56]. 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].…”