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Do environment and type of walking influence gait temporal parameters of straight walking?
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Do environment and type of walking influence gait temporal parameters of straight walking?

F. Storm, C. Buckley, B. Galna, L. Rochester and C. Mazzà
Gait and Posture, Vol.42, pp.S26-S27
2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gaitpost.2015.07.054
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Abstract

Introduction: Instrumented gait analysis is traditionally carried out in standardised indoor conditions [1], which may not reflect free natural walking. Wearable sensors can be used to record data in free walking conditions to improve and reinforce the interpretation of data acquired in laboratory conditions. Using plantar pressure insoles and magneto-inertial sensors, this study aimed to determine if straight walking temporal parameters are influenced by the environment (indoor or outdoor) and by the type of walking experiment (controlled or free), in a group of healthy volunteers. Methods: Ten healthy participants were instructed to walk at self-selected pace in a 25-m long straight path (8 times), both indoor and outdoor. Then, they were asked to walk freely without restrictions both indoor along the university corridors (∼5 min) and outdoor, in the city centre (∼15 min). A portable plantar pressure system (F-Scan, Tekscan) and inertial sensors (Opal, Apdm) were used to record data. Straight walking intervals during free walking were isolated for comparison applying a Haar wavelet transform to the quaternion output of the lumbar (L5) inertial sensor, to identify changes in walking direction. Mean, standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variation (CV) were computed for the temporal parameters [2]. Hundred-fifty steps were isolated per each walking condition and differences were investigated using two-way (environment and type of walking) repeated measures ANOVA (post-hoc pairwise comparison with p = 0.01 and Bonferroni correction). Results: The results are summarised in Table 1. There was a significant main effect of environment for swing time (p = 0.004), step time (p = 0.010) and stride time (p = 0.002), with all three parameters being smaller during outdoor walking. There was a significant main effect of type of walking on step (p = 0.007) and stride (p = 0.008) time and step cadence (p = 0.004). No interaction effects were observed.

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