Accelerometer-Based Step Regularity Is Lower in Older Adults with Bilateral Knee Osteoarthritis

Abstract

Purpose: To compare the regularity and symmetry of gait between a cohort of older adults with bilateral knee osteoarthritis (OA) and an age and sex-matched control group of older adults with healthy knees.Methods: Fifteen (8 females) older adults with knee OA (64.7 ± 6.7 years) and fifteen (8 females) pain-free controls (66.1 ± 10.0 years) completed a 9-min. walk at a self-selected, comfortable speed while wearing a single waist-mounted tri-axial accelerometer. The following gait parameters were compared between the two groups according to sex: mean step time, mean stride time, stride and step regularity (defined as the consistency of the stride-to-stride or step-to-step pattern) and the symmetry of gait (defined as the difference between step and stride regularity) as determined by an unbiased autocorrelation procedure that analyzed the pattern of acceleration in the vertical, mediolateral and anteroposterior directions.Results: Older adults with knee OA displayed significantly less step regularity in the vertical (p < 0.05) and anteroposterior (p < 0.05) directions than controls. Females with knee OA were also found to have significantly less mediolateral step regularity than female controls (p < 0.05), whereas no difference was found between males.Conclusion: The results showed that the regularity of the step pattern in individuals with bilateral knee OA was less consistent compared to similarly-aged older adults with healthy knees. The findings suggest that future studies should investigate the relationship between step regularity, sex and movement direction as well as the application of these methods to the clinical assessment of knee OA.

Improvement in gait asymmetry during Nordic walking in patients with lower extremity osteoarthritis

“…Unlike step symmetry, stride regularity showed no significant difference between patient groups. These results are similar to those of Barden et al 8) . Although Barden et al did not measure leg strength asymmetry, they reported that AP and VT step symmetry values were lower in patients with knee OA than in healthy individuals Step symmetry in the AP, VT, and ML directions were 0.601, 0.675, and 0.588 during normal walking, respectively, and 0.707, 0.761, and 0.590 during Nordic walking, respectively.…”

“…Step symmetry values in healthy elderly individuals were reported to be 0.71 35) , 0.77 36) , and 0.86-0.88 8) in the AP direction; 0.72 35) , 0.83 36) , and 0.90-0.92 8) in the VT direction; and 0.49 35) , 0.63 36) , and 0.62-0.75 8) in the medial-lateral (ML) direction. In the present study, step symmetry values in patients with lesser leg strength symmetry were 0.85, 0.87, and 0.61 in the AP, VT, and ML directions, respectively.…”

“…Compared with age-matched healthy individuals, patients with lower extremity OA have a shorter stride length [2][3][4] , smaller range of motion in the knee 2,3) or hip 4,5) , higher knee adduction moment 3) , and increased peak speed of trunk sway onto the non-affected side of the leg 6) when walking. In addition to these gait characteristics, an asymmetric gait pattern has been reported in patients with lower extremity OA; asymmetry in single support time and step length was found in patients with hip OA 7) , and step symmetry evaluated by trunk acceleration was reduced in patients with hip and knee OA 7,8) .…”

New Considerations for Collecting Biomechanical Data Using Wearable Sensors: The Effect of Different Running Environments

“…The acceleration signal was then aligned with gravity (Moe-Nilssen, 1998) and the direction of motion within the horizontal plane (Avvenuti et al, 2013). The signal was segmented into steps (Lee et al, 2010), each step was normalized to 50 data points, and a previously defined set of 24 features (Moe- Nilssen and Helbostad, 2004;Kobsar et al, 2014;Barden et al, 2016) was extracted from the signal ( Table 2). These features included the peaks, magnitude (RMS), and ratio of the acceleration in three dimensions, averaged across all steps.…”

Usos De Los Acelerómetros en Fisioterapia: Una Revisión De La Literatura

“…Se puede hacer uso de los acelerómetros para analizar las afecciones espaciotemporales de la marcha en pacientes con osteoartritis de rodilla, enfermedad de Parkinson, adultos mayores. Adicionalmente, con esta medición se pueden detectar asimetrías en cuanto a la velocidad, acho de paso, cadencia y control de tronco que se relacionen con riesgo de caída y alteración del balance en posición estática y dinámica (5,11,12,(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50). De hecho, la evaluación a través de acelerometría puede detectar alteraciones en la marcha como perturbaciones, temblores, pasos cortos en pacientes con enfermedad de Parkinson y ser una evaluación objetiva para dirigir tratamientos enfocados en la rehabilitación de estos factores y tener un seguimiento cuantitativo de los resultados del paciente debido a que los acelerómetros permiten evaluar en planos frontal, sagital, transversal detectando alteraciones antero posteriores y laterales (51-57).…”