Age-related changes in spatial and temporal gait variables.
OBJECTIVE
To extend recent findings describing the effect of age on spatial and temporal gait variables.


METHODS
Experimental.


METHODS
A gait analysis laboratory.


METHODS
Two experiments with healthy nonfallers were conducted. Experiment 1 included 33 subjects (n = 15, 72.13 +/- 3.96yr; n = 18, 25.06 +/- 4.02yr); and experiment 2 included 24 subjects (n = 14, 75.57 +/- 6.15yr; n = 10; 28.10 +/- 3.48yr).


METHODS
The effect of age, walking velocity, shoe condition, and performance of an attention-splitting task on gait variables was investigated.


METHODS
Temporal and spatial gait variables were quantified using an instrumented surface across which subjects walked. The independent variables were walking velocity variability, stride length variability, stride width variability, and stride time variability.


RESULTS
Stride width variability of older adults was significantly larger than that of younger adults in both experiments. The remaining gait variables demonstrated nonsystematic or no age-related differences.


CONCLUSIONS
With the exception of stride width variability, the variability of the remaining gait variables of interest were insensitive to the speed at which subjects walked, whether the subjects were wearing shoes or not, and performing an attention-splitting task while walking. These findings contribute to an emerging interpretive framework established by similar work published by others regarding gait variability.
Grabiner
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PC
Clinical Biomechanics and Rehabilitation Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA.
Biswas
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ST
Grabiner
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MD
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D005260:Female; D005684:Gait; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012775:Shoes; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology