title: Agreement between the GAITRite walkway system and a stopwatch-footfall count method for measurement of temporal and spatial gait parameters.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Program in Physical Therapy, Mayo School of Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. youdas.james@mayo.edu
authors.forename: James W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Youdas
authors.forename: John H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Hollman
authors.forename: Monica J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Aalbers
authors.forename: Holly N
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Ahrenholz
authors.forename: Rebecca A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Aten
authors.forename: Joseph J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Cremers
mesh_terms: 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