Article

Inertial sensor gait analysis systems (ISGAS) facilitate gait analysis in an
unobstructed environment outdoors or outside of a conventional gait laboratory.
However, their use in clinical settings and in large scale studies necessitates
thorough evaluation of their performance in different settings and populations
and reference data on healthy subjects. The purposes of this study were to obtain
spatio-temporal gait parameters using a large cohort of subjects of all ages and
to identify relationships between gait parameters and subject characteristics. An
inertial sensor based system (RehaWatch((R)), HASOMED((R))) was used to collect
gait data for 1860 healthy subjects (919 men; aged 5-100 years). Following two
practice trials, data of one trial were collected for each subject while walking
on a 20m walkway. Spatio-temporal gait parameters were calculated and normalized
to body height. Demographic and morphological data including age, gender, body
height and body mass were recorded. Multifactorial regression models were used to
evaluate determinants of different gait parameters. Strong non-linear
relationships between predictors (age) and gait parameters were identified.
Overall, the predictors explained the largest portion of variance for stride
length (R(2)=0.46). Normalized cadence showed one peak across all ages.
Normalized walking speed and normalized stride length showed two peaks across all
ages. The largest and smallest variations across the ages were observed for
normalized walking speed (98%) and for normalized stride length (89%),
respectively. This reference database is the foundation for future evaluations of
gait disorders in patients of all ages and has been integrated in the RehaWatch((R)) system.
CI - Copyright (c) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS