Agreement between the GAITRite walkway system and a stopwatch-footfall count method for measurement of temporal and spatial gait parameters.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the agreement for measurements of stride length, cadence, and walking speed obtained from the GAITRite system and the stopwatch-footfall count technique.


METHODS
Criterion standard.


METHODS
Research laboratory in a physical therapy education program.


METHODS
Forty healthy volunteers (13 men, 27 women) without lower-extremity injury.


METHODS
Participants walked across a GAITRite mat with embedded pressure sensors at their self-selected walking speed. Simultaneously, an examiner used a stopwatch to record the elapsed time necessary to cross the mat and counted the number of complete footfalls.


METHODS
Walking speed, cadence, and stride-length measures were compared between the GAITRite system and the stopwatch-footfall count technique.


RESULTS
Correlation coefficients comparing both systems were .97 for walking speed, .75 for cadence, and .85 for stride length. Ninety-five percent of the time we would expect the between-methods differences to range between .09 and -.05m/s for walking speed, between -1.5 and -24.3 steps/min for cadence, and between .01 and .37m for stride length.


CONCLUSIONS
This study shows that the GAITRite and stopwatch-footfall count methods lack clinically acceptable agreement for the measurements of cadence and stride length in a group of healthy volunteers walking at their self-selected speeds. Clinicians who require precise measurement of cadence and stride length should consider using the GAITRite system instead of the stopwatch-footfall count technique.
Youdas
James W
JW
Program in Physical Therapy, Mayo School of Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. youdas.james@mayo.edu
Hollman
John H
JH
Aalbers
Monica J
MJ
Ahrenholz
Holly N
HN
Aten
Rebecca A
RA
Cremers
Joseph J
JJ
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D026761:Physical Therapy Specialty / Q000295:instrumentation*; D011312:Pressure; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology