A novel smartphone application is reliable for repeat administration and comparable to the Tekscan Strideway for spatiotemporal gait

Validity and reliability of the Apple Health app on iPhone for measuring gait parameters in children, adults, and seniors

“…Test–retest reliability of the Health app was consistently good to excellent for all gait parameters in adults (ICC = 0.75–0.80) and seniors (ICC = 0.88–0.93). These findings correspond to those reported for the OneStep and Gait Analyzer apps, which also demonstrated good to excellent test–retest reliability for measuring gait speed (ICC = 0.77–0.98), step length (ICC = 0.80–0.97), and/or double support time (ICC = 0.90–0.98) in adults 31 , 33 , 37 . In contrast, reliability of the Health app was poor to moderate for measuring gait speed and step length in children (ICC = 0.39–0.61), which was lower than that of the Gait Analyzer app in children and adolescents (ICC = 0.87–0.94) 30 .…”

“…Given the ubiquity, easy accessibility and high acceptability of smartphones, applications (apps) that use these built-in IMUs for gait monitoring combined with easy-to-use interfaces, automatic data processing and analysis, and real-time reporting on gait performance may overcome the limitations of stand-alone IMUs. There is emerging evidence for the validity and/or reliability of smartphone apps to quantify spatio-temporal gait parameters in children and adolescents 30 , young and/or older adults 31 – 38 , and patients with (neuro-)muscular pathologies 39 – 42 . Apart from a few exceptions (e.g., Apple Health, OneStep, Gait Analyzer), most of these apps still focus on standardized measurements of gait capacity by providing multimedia instructions for self-administered test protocols 34 – 36 , 39 , 40 and depend a standardized smartphone placement (e.g., sacroiliac belt) 35 , 36 , 39 , 42 .…”

Spatiotemporal gait and fatigue do not change when using common at-home gait tasks in patients with Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy: a pilot study

“…Online calculations of step time, step length, gait velocity, and cadence were computed as previously described using each step [22]. This application has high intrarater and interrater reliability [22], sufficient validity when compared to motion capture [22], and high validity and good to high testretest reliability [26]. Specifically, tri-axial accelerations, which were collected at the smartphone's maximum sampling frequency (Android: SENSOR_DELAY_FASTEST; 95-105 Hz range), were resampled to 100 Hz, to ensure a constant sampling rate.…”

“…Modern smartphones are used by approximately 45% of the world's population [21] and are fairly accurate, depending on the internal accelerometers, in tracking gait features [22,23]. The Gait Analyzer [24] created by Control One LLC, has gained popularity as published research indicates it can accurately track gait of pathological and older adult populations [24][25][26]. This application was recently validated against a gold standard gait mat [26], acceptable levels of intrarater and interrater reliability [22], and sufficient validity when compared to motion capture [22].…”

“…The Gait Analyzer [24] created by Control One LLC, has gained popularity as published research indicates it can accurately track gait of pathological and older adult populations [24][25][26]. This application was recently validated against a gold standard gait mat [26], acceptable levels of intrarater and interrater reliability [22], and sufficient validity when compared to motion capture [22]. To overcome the barrier of patient travel and to reduce the overall cost of potential clinical trials, it is important to use technology such as the Gait Analyzer to track gait performance at-home.…”