Gait Variability and Complexity during Single and Dual-Task Walking on Different Surfaces in Outdoor Environment.

Denisa Nohelova,Lucia Bizovska,Zdenek Svoboda,Nicolas Vuillerme

doi:10.3390/s21144792

Abstract

Nowadays, gait assessment in the real life environment is gaining more attention. Therefore, it is desirable to know how some factors, such as surfaces (natural, artificial) or dual-tasking, influence real life gait pattern. The aim of this study was to assess gait variability and gait complexity during single and dual-task walking on different surfaces in an outdoor environment. Twenty-nine healthy young adults aged 23.31 ± 2.26 years (18 females, 11 males) walked at their preferred walking speed on three different surfaces (asphalt, cobbles, grass) in single-task and in two dual-task conditions (manual task—carrying a cup filled with water, cognitive task—subtracting the number 7). A triaxial inertial sensor attached to the lower trunk was used to record trunk acceleration during gait. From 15 strides, sample entropy (SampEn) as an indicator of gait complexity and root mean square (RMS) as an indicator of gait variability were computed. The findings demonstrate that in an outdoor environment, the surfaces significantly impacted only gait variability, not complexity, and that the tasks affected both gait variability and complexity in young healthy adults.

Highlights

Studies using a nonlinear approach for gait evaluation highlighted the fact that normal human gait is fundamentally chaotic, highly complex and provides flexibility to adjust to disturbances that occur during movement [1]
The goal of this study was to assess the effects of different dual-tasks while walking in an outdoor environment on different surfaces on gait variability and gait complexity in young healthy adults
The present study was designed to assess the effects of various conditions on gait performance in an outdoor environment in healthy young adults

Summary

Introduction

Studies using a nonlinear approach for gait evaluation highlighted the fact that normal human gait is fundamentally chaotic, highly complex and provides flexibility to adjust to disturbances that occur during movement [1]. It has been previously demonstrated that walking on an uneven surface modifies lower limb and trunk kinematics, spatial−temporal gait characteristics and their variability even in young adults [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. In the above mentioned studies [5,6,7], the surface conditions were simulated trying to reach real world conditions and all of them reported changes in the observed variables relating to gait pattern. This study, focused mainly on 30 diabetic patients and 15 healthy older people as a control group, compared spatial−temporal gait characteristics and gait kinematics on three different surfaces (tar, grass and cobblestones). Alterations in gait pattern of healthy older adults [10] and in diabetic individuals [10] were observed

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Conclusion