Huijben B, van Schooten K S, van Dieën J H, Pijnappels M
Department of Human Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam Movement Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; McRoberts B.V. Raamweg 43 2596 HN The Hague The Netherlands.
Neuroscience Research Australia, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Gait Posture. 2018 Sep;65:112-116. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2018.07.004. Epub 2018 Jul 10.
Gait quality characteristics can contribute to the identification of individuals at risk of falls. Since older adults with high fall risk tend to walk slower than older adults with a lower fall risk, walking speed may underlie differences in gait quality characteristics.
How does walking speed affect gait quality characteristics in older people?
We investigated the effect of walking speed on gait characteristics in 11 older adults (aged 69.6 ± 4.1 years). Trunk accelerations (Dynaport MoveMonitor) were recorded during 5 min of treadmill walking at four different speeds. From these trunk accelerations we calculated step frequency, root mean square, harmonic ratio, index of harmonicity, sample entropy and logarithmic divergence rate per stride.
Our results showed that all gait characteristics were affected by walking speed, except for sample entropy in antero-posterior (AP) direction. An increase in walking speed resulted in a higher step frequency, higher standard deviation, more symmetric gait, more smooth vertical (VT) accelerations, less smooth accelerations in medio-lateral (ML) and AP directions, less regular dynamics in ML direction, more regular dynamics in VT direction, and a more stable gait pattern overall.
These findings suggest that, within a range of 0.5-1.4 m/s, a lower walking speed results in a lower gait quality, which may underlie differences in gait quality between older fallers and non-fallers.
步态质量特征有助于识别跌倒风险个体。由于跌倒风险高的老年人往往比跌倒风险低的老年人走得慢，步行速度可能是步态质量特征差异的基础。
步行速度如何影响老年人的步态质量特征？
我们调查了11名老年人（年龄69.6±4.1岁）步行速度对步态特征的影响。在跑步机上以四种不同速度步行5分钟期间记录躯干加速度（Dynaport MoveMonitor）。从这些躯干加速度中，我们计算出步频、均方根、谐波比、谐波指数、样本熵和每步的对数发散率。
我们的结果表明，除前后（AP）方向的样本熵外，所有步态特征均受步行速度影响。步行速度增加导致步频更高、标准差更高、步态更对称、垂直（VT）加速度更平滑、内外侧（ML）和AP方向的加速度更不平滑、ML方向的动态更不规则、VT方向的动态更规则以及整体步态模式更稳定。
这些发现表明，在0.5-1.4米/秒的范围内，较低的步行速度导致较低的步态质量，这可能是跌倒者和非跌倒者之间步态质量差异的基础。
