The Validity of Gait Variability and Fractal Dynamics Obtained From a Single, Body-Fixed Triaxial Accelerometer

Abstract

A single triaxial accelerometer has the ability to collect a large amount of continuous gait data to quantitatively assess the control of gait. Unfortunately, there is limited information on the validity of gait variability and fractal dynamics obtained from this device. The purpose of this study was to test the concurrent validity of the variability and fractal dynamic measures of gait provided by a triaxial accelerometer during a continuous 10 minute walk in older adults. Forty-one healthy older adults were fitted with a single triaxial accelerometer at the waist, as well as a criterion footswitch device before completing a ten minute overground walk. The concurrent validity of six outcome measures was examined using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and 95% limits of agreement. All six dependent variables measured by the accelerometer displayed excellent agreement with the footswitch device. Mean parameters displayed the highest validity, followed by measures of variability and fractal dynamics in stride times and measures of variability and fractal dynamics in step times. These findings suggest that an accelerometer is a valid and unique device that has the potential to provide clinicians with valid quantitative data for assessing their clients' gait.

Signatures of knee osteoarthritis in women in the temporal and fractal dynamics of human gait

“…Recently, both Alkjaer and colleagues (Alkjaer et al, 2015) and Clermont and Barden (Clermont and Barden, 2016) did not find significant differences in DFA between patients with and without KNOA. The DFA for subjects from our healthy group was in range of previously reported DFA values from their and other studies (our DFA: 0.81 vs. DFAs from other studies: 0.72, 0.77, 0.88 and 0.76, the former two DFAs from the abovementioned studies, the latter two from (Gates et al, 2007) and (Kobsar et al, 2014) respectively). The DFA values of our KNOA patients were lower than reported by Alkjaer et al (Alkjaer et al, 2015) and Clermont and Barden (Clermont and Barden, 2016), i.e.…”

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

“…Self-selected speeds were chosen because they most accurately represent the natural gait pattern according to each participant's stature and other physical factors such as strength and flexibility (Clermont and Barden, 2016). A single triaxial accelerometer (GENEActiv, Cambridgeshire, UK) was attached to a belt that was located firmly at the lower back (L3) to approximate the total body center of mass (Moe-Nilssen and Helbostad, 2004; Kobsar et al, 2014b). For a depiction of the experimental setup please refer to Kobsar et al (2014b).…”

“…A single triaxial accelerometer (GENEActiv, Cambridgeshire, UK) was attached to a belt that was located firmly at the lower back (L3) to approximate the total body center of mass (Moe-Nilssen and Helbostad, 2004; Kobsar et al, 2014b). For a depiction of the experimental setup please refer to Kobsar et al (2014b). The accelerometer recorded continuous acceleration at a sampling rate of 100 Hz during the 9-min walking trial, which is consistent with sampling frequencies used by previous studies to determine measures of gait variability (Hartmann et al, 2009; Kobsar et al, 2014a).…”

Machine Learning and Similarity Network Approaches to Support Automatic Classification of Parkinson’s Diseases Using Accelerometer-based Gait Analysis

“…Average stride time. Mean of stride time has been used in evaluation of age-related gait differences [37] as well as disease-related gait differences [38]. Average stride time is considered as one of the features for the classification task.…”