Spatiotemporal gait parameters for older adults - An interactive model adjusting reference data for gender, age, and body height.

INTRODUCTION

Since it is well documented that spatiotemporal gait parameters are affected by body size, it is of limited clinical value to compare individual scores against reference values without taking body size into consideration. For older adults, reference values have been presented in recent reports, but unfortunately the effect of body size on gait characteristics was not taken into account and neither prediction intervals nor percentile ranks were included. It is the aim of this study to present and assess a model where individual spatiotemporal gait parameter values for older adults can be compared to reference values adjusted for gender, age, and body height.

METHODS

Reference gait data were collected from l464 older adults aged 69-80 years with no impairments believed to affect gait, stratified by gender, intermediately adjusted to a common body height using a pendulum model and entered into a simple regression model for each parameter with age as predictor. From the regression coefficients predicted gait parameter values could be back transformed to the individual body height of a new subject. Calculations were done using spreadsheet formulae and equations.

RESULTS

A spreadsheet based graphical user interface (GUI) has been developed in Microsoft Excel® where individual spatiotemporal gait data is entered for comparison with reference data taking gender, age and body height into account, and returning predicted point estimates with confidence intervals, prediction intervals, and percentile ranks.

SIGNIFICANCE

A GUI solution where individual spatiotemporal gait data is compared to reference data is feasible to researchers and for clinical use. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first model presented for comparison of basic gait parameters between individuals and reference data from older adults where gender, age, and body height are taken into account.