Gait Variability Using Waist- and Ankle-Worn Inertial Measurement Units in Healthy Older Adults
Year of publication
2020
Authors
Rantalainen, Timo; Karavirta, Laura; Pirkola, Henrikki; Rantanen, Taina; Linnamo, Vesa
Abstract
Gait variability observed in step duration is predictive of impending adverse health outcomes among apparently healthy older adults and could potentially be evaluated using wearable sensors (inertial measurement units, IMU). The purpose of the present study was to establish the reliability and concurrent validity of gait variability and complexity evaluated with a waist and an ankle-worn IMU. Seventeen women (age 74.8 (SD 44) years) and 10 men (73.7 (4.1) years) attended two laboratory measurement sessions a week apart. Their stride duration variability was concurrently evaluated based on a continuous 3 min walk using a force plate and a waist- and an ankle-worn IMU. Their gait complexity (multiscale sample entropy) was evaluated from the waist-worn IMU. The force plate indicated excellent stride duration variability reliability (intra-class correlation coefficient, ICC = 0.90), whereas fair to good reliability (ICC = 0.47 to 0.66) was observed from the IMUs. The IMUs exhibited poor to excellent concurrent validity in stride duration variability compared to the force plate (ICC = 0.22 to 0.93). A good to excellent reliability was observed for gait complexity in most coarseness scales (ICC = 0.60 to 0.82). A reasonable congruence with the force plate-measured stride duration variability was observed on many coarseness scales (correlation coefficient = 0.38 to 0.83). In conclusion, waist-worn IMU entropy estimates may provide a feasible indicator of gait variability among community-dwelling ambulatory older adults.
Show moreOrganizations and authors
Publication type
Publication format
Article
Parent publication type
Journal
Article type
Original article
Audience
ScientificPeer-reviewed
Peer-ReviewedMINEDU's publication type classification code
A1 Journal article (refereed), original researchPublication channel information
Open access
Open access in the publisher’s service
Yes
Open access of publication channel
Fully open publication channel
Self-archived
Yes
Article processing fee (EUR)
1898
Year of payment for the open publication fee
2020
Other information
Fields of science
Sport and fitness sciences
Keywords
[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]
Publication country
Switzerland
Internationality of the publisher
International
Language
English
International co-publication
No
Co-publication with a company
No
DOI
10.3390/s20102858
The publication is included in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s Publication data collection
Yes