Background-The maximal walking distance (MWD) performed on a treadmill test remains the "gold standard" in estimating the walking capacity of patients who have peripheral arterial disease with intermittent claudication, although treadmills are not accessible to most physicians. We hypothesized that global positioning system (GPS) recordings could monitor community-based outdoor walking and provide valid information on walking capacity in patients with peripheral arterial disease. Methods and Results-We studied 24 patients (6 women
Low-cost, commercially available GPS may be accurate in studying outdoor walking, provided that simple data processing is applied. Future validation in diseased subjects could allow for the study of free-living walking capacity, such as maximal walking distance in vascular patients.
A wide short-term variability of WDBS exists and likely contributes to the difficulties experienced by patients with IC to estimate their maximal walking distance at leisurely pace. Incomplete recovery from a preceding walk, as estimated through PSD, seems to dominantly account for the WDBS in patients with IC.
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