Walking indoors, outdoors, and on a treadmill: Gait differences in healthy young and older adults.
Gait Posture
; 90: 468-474, 2021 10.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34619613
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
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. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 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?METHODS:
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.RESULTS:
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).SIGNIFICANCE:
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.Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Caminata
/
Marcha
Tipo de estudio:
Clinical_trials
Límite:
Adult
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Aged
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Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Gait Posture
Asunto de la revista:
ORTOPEDIA
Año:
2021
Tipo del documento:
Article