Citation

Senden R, Savelberg HH, Grimm B, Heyligers IC, Meijer K. Gait Posture 2012; 36(2): 296-300.

Affiliation

Atrium Medical Center, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery & Traumatology, Henri Dunantstraat 5, Heerlen, P.O. Box 4446, 6401 CX Heerlen, The Netherlands; Maastricht University, Department of Human Movement Science, Faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Universiteitssingel 50, 6229 ER Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.gaitpost.2012.03.015

PMID

22512847

Abstract

This study investigated whether the Tinetti scale, as a subjective measure for fall risk, is associated with objectively measured gait characteristics. It is studied whether gait parameters are different for groups that are stratified for fall risk using the Tinetti scale. Moreover, the discriminative power of gait parameters to classify elderly according to the Tinetti scale is investigated. Gait of 50 elderly with a Tinneti>24 and 50 elderly with a Tinetti≤24 was analyzed using acceleration-based gait analysis. Validated algorithms were used to derive spatio-temporal gait parameters, harmonic ratio, inter-stride amplitude variability and root mean square (RMS) from the accelerometer data. Clear differences in gait were found between the groups. All gait parameters correlated with the Tinetti scale (r-range: 0.20-0.73). Only walking speed, step length and RMS showed moderate to strong correlations and high discriminative power to classify elderly according to the Tinetti scale. It is concluded that subtle gait changes that have previously been related to fall risk are not captured by the subjective assessment. It is therefore worthwhile to include objective gait assessment in fall risk screening.

Language: en