Schmitt Abigail C, Baudendistel Sidney T, Lipat Ania L, White Tatiana A, Raffegeau Tiphanie E, Hass Chris J
Department of Health, Human Performance, and Recreation, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA; Applied Neuromechanics Laboratory, Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
Applied Neuromechanics Laboratory, Department of Applied Physiology and Kinesiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
Gait Posture. 2021 Oct;90:468-474. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2021.09.197. Epub 2021 Sep 28.
Although human gait is typically studied in a laboratory environment, the findings of laboratory-based gait assessments are often applied to daily life scenarios. Assessing gait in varied conditions may offer a better understanding of the influence of environment on gait performance.
How do spatiotemporal gait measures differ between indoor overground walking, outdoor walking, and treadmill walking in healthy adults? Do different walking environments exaggerate age-related alterations in gait performance in older compared to young adults?
30 young (18-30yrs) and 28 older adults (60-80yrs) completed four randomized conditions at their typical, comfortable walking pace: 1) 8 m of indoor walking, 2) continuous indoor walking, 3) treadmill walking, and 4) outdoor walking on a sidewalk. Wearable inertial sensors recorded gait data and the magnitudes and variability (in standard deviations) of the following gait measures were computed: cadence, percent double support, stride length (with sample entropy), and gait velocity.
Despite the lack of significant univariate interactions between group and walking condition, significant main effects for condition and group were observed in both the magnitude and variability analyses. Treadmill walking resulted in a slower gait with shorter, less variable strides (p < .001), while walking outdoors resulted in faster gait with longer strides (p < .001) compared to other walking conditions. Stride length regularity was reduced when walking outdoors compared to treadmill walking (p = .019).
The results showed that the effects of walking condition on gait measures were more dramatic than participant age, and gait performance differs between walking environments in both older and younger adults. Since daily life gait encompasses both tightly controlled and unconstrained, free-living walking, researchers and clinicians should use caution when generalizing gait performance across walking conditions. Measures of gait performance typically used in laboratory gait analyses may not adequately characterize daily life gait in indoor and outdoor environments.
尽管人类步态通常在实验室环境中进行研究，但基于实验室的步态评估结果常常应用于日常生活场景。在不同条件下评估步态可能有助于更好地理解环境对步态表现的影响。
在健康成年人中，室内地面行走、户外行走和跑步机行走之间的时空步态测量有何不同？与年轻人相比，不同的行走环境是否会加剧老年人步态表现中与年龄相关的变化？
30名年轻人（18 - 30岁）和28名老年人（60 - 80岁）以他们平常舒适的步行速度完成了四种随机条件下的测试：1）8米室内行走，2）持续室内行走，3）跑步机行走，4）在人行道上户外行走。可穿戴惯性传感器记录步态数据，并计算以下步态测量的幅度和变异性（以标准差表示）：步频、双支撑百分比、步长（带有样本熵）和步态速度。
尽管组与行走条件之间缺乏显著的单变量交互作用，但在幅度和变异性分析中均观察到了条件和组的显著主效应。与其他行走条件相比，跑步机行走导致步态较慢，步长较短且变异性较小（p < 0.001），而户外行走则导致步态较快，步长较长（p < 0.001）。与跑步机行走相比，户外行走时步长规律性降低（p = 0.019）。
结果表明，行走条件对步态测量的影响比参与者年龄更为显著，老年人和年轻人在不同行走环境中的步态表现均有所不同。由于日常生活中的步态既包括严格控制的行走，也包括无约束的自由行走，研究人员和临床医生在将步态表现推广到不同行走条件时应谨慎。实验室步态分析中通常使用的步态表现测量方法可能无法充分表征室内和室外环境中的日常生活步态。
