Abstract
Preferred walking speed (PWS) is considered a robust measure for assessing mobility and overall health. Healthy reference data are unavailable for Qatar. The aim of this study was to investigate PWS and underlying gait parameters around PWS among healthy young adults living in Qatar. PWS was assessed for 18 Qataris (9 females) and 16 non-Qatari Arabs residing in Qatar (9 females). Within- and between-gender group comparisons were carried out using Mann–Whitney U-tests. Metabolic cost of transport, heart rate, rating of perceived exertion, and spatiotemporal parameters were compared between Qatari and non-Qatari groups of similar gender at seven speed levels relative to PWS using two-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Similar comparisons were done at two absolute speeds using Mann–Whitney U-tests. While PWS did not differ significantly between the female groups, it was on average 19% slower for the Qatari males as compared to non-Qatari males. At similar relative speeds, differences appeared solely in physiological parameters between female groups. Only spatiotemporal differences were revealed between the male groups where longer stride and support phase durations and slower stride frequencies characterized the Qatari male group. It is suggested that differences in PWS could be due to potential cultural factors (e.g., cultural clothing) differentiating the Qatari and non-Qatari groups. PWS values reported in this study also appear systematically lower when compared to Western references found in the literature. Findings suggest that the assessment of normative gait values needs to take both cultural habits and geographic disparity into account.
Highlights
Walking is the most natural activity of daily living and is a popular form of physical activity
While preferred walking speed (PWS) did not differ significantly between the Qatari and non-Qatari female groups (p = .790), it was on average 19% slower for Qatari compared to non-Qatari males (U = 8.5, |Z| = 2.43, p = .015; Figure 1)
(U = 6.0, ǀZǀ = 2.70, p = .005), while no difference in PWS was found between the Qatari female and male groups (p = .80)
Summary
Walking is the most natural activity of daily living and is a popular form of physical activity. Even though healthy humans can walk at speeds up to 9 km∙h−1, they typically only use a very limited range of speeds around 4.5 km∙h−1 in their daily life activities (Bohannon & Andrews, 2011), coinciding with the least energy requirement (Margaria, 1976). The most comfortable speed at which humans freely choose to walk, known as the preferred walking speed (PWS), is considered an important and reliable indicator of mobility and health (Cesari et al, 2005; Studenski et al, 2011). In a recent review on walking speed as a reference tool for clinicians, Middleton et al (2015) defined important cut-off values that could be used as indicators of specific health outcomes (e.g., dependency levels, frailty, risk of death, hospitalization and falls, and safety in crossing street)
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