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A simple method to categorize gait speed of older persons based on visual inspection of stepping

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a simple visualized approach to classify persons into meaningful gait speed categories. Footprints of 310 instrumented gait analyses of 190 geriatric persons (mean age 79.1 years, 74 women) were used in a retrospective analysis to classify persons´ footprints into a left/right step overlapping, an intermediate or a long stepping pattern. The association between gait speed and step length was r = 0.91. More than 75% of the measurements classified as overlapping stepping pattern had a gait speed of below 0.5 m/s. All participants of the long stepping pattern group had a gait speed of faster than 1 m/s. The positive predictive values for classifying gait speed correctly were 71–100%. The proposed screening tool can be used in outpatient settings or home visits and is likely to be applicable if instrumented gait speed assessment is not available.

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Fig. 1

Data availability

The datasets generated during this study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgement

The authors thank Clara Mohrhard for data collection and Michaela Gross for supervising data collection. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geriatrics and Clinic for Geriatric Rehabilitation, Robert-Bosch-Hospital Stuttgart, Auerbachstr. 110, 70376, Stuttgart, Germany

    Ulrich Lindemann, Kilian Rapp & Clemens Becker

Authors
  1. Ulrich Lindemann
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  2. Kilian Rapp
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  3. Clemens Becker
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ulrich Lindemann.

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Conflict of interest

Author CB is consultant of E. Lilly, Nutritia and Amgen, Robert Bosch Healthcare and Philips Germany. Author KR is consultant of Amgen. Author UL declares no conflict of interest.

Statement of human and animal rights

The study was performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the ethical committee of the local university and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

Written informed consent was obtained from the patients via hospital treatment contract and the use of routine data for this study was approved by the ethical committee of the medical faculty of the University of Tuebingen (241/2016BO1). Participants of the research project gave written informed consent for secondary data analysis. This study was approved by the same ethical committee (578/2011BO2).

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Lindemann, U., Rapp, K. & Becker, C. A simple method to categorize gait speed of older persons based on visual inspection of stepping. Aging Clin Exp Res 31, 1843–1846 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-019-01332-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-019-01332-1

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