The influence of sensitizer on spatiotemporal asymmetry in gait: a comparison of fallers and non-fallers

Abstract

Aim

To compare spatiotemporal parameters of asymmetry in gait between fallers and non-fallers in the age group of 50–79 years under the influence of different sensitisers.

Settings and design

Convenience sampling. Cross-sectional observational study.

Methods and material

A cross-sectional study was conducted on a cohort of seventy-two healthy adults within the age range of 50–79 years. The participants were segregated into two distinct groups: fallers, who had experienced falls within the past year and achieved a John Hopkins score exceeding 6, and non-fallers, characterised by an absence of falls in the preceding year and a John Hopkins score lower than 6. Gait analysis was performed using a pressure-sensitive walkway system known as GaitRite. Subjects were asked to walk two times on the walkway under five different conditions (slow walking, fast, walking, fixed gaze walking, dual-task walking, and walking with weights). Data were analysed.

Results

A Mann–Whitney U Test was employed to statistically compare gait asymmetry between fallers and non-fallers, revealing a significant difference. This dissimilarity in gait asymmetry was further magnified under varying sensitising conditions. Temporal parameters demonstrated more pronounced asymmetry when compared to spatial parameters.

Conclusions

The result shows that sensitisers influence the asymmetry in fallers more when compared to non-fallers. The sensitisers which increased asymmetry compared to non-fallers were slow walking, fast walking, fixed gaze, dual-task, and walking with weights. This study observed that all the temporal parameters are sensitive towards asymmetry when subjects were asked to walk under different sensitisers.

Keywords:

• Gait asymmetry
• spatiotemporal parameters
• gait rite
• gait analysis

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge Dr. Sudha Lakshmi Narayan and Dr. Mukta Pitambare for their time and support during the data collection phase of this study. I would also like to thank Dr. Monika Vempadapu for her support and help in preparing this manuscript. However, any errors found are our own and should not tarnish the reputations of these esteemed people.

Ethical approval

This research involving study on human subjects was carried out with the formal approval at the level of the Institutional Ethical Committee.

The Institutional Ethics Committee with Reg. No: ECR/215/lnst/KA/2013/RR-16, approved the intervention study on 05.10.2018.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Table 5. Walking with a fixed gaze.

Table 6. Walking with obstacle.

Table 7. Dual-task walking.

Table 8. Walking with weights.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.