The following is a summary of “Beyond gait speed: exploring the added value of Inertial Measurement Unit-based measurements of gait in the estimation of the walking ability in daily life,” published in the April 2024 issue of Neurology by Felius et al.
Clinicians use gait speed to assess walking ability in stroke patients, but it’s unclear if additional data from inertial measurement units (IMUs) can improve daily life walking ability estimates.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to assess if IMU data improves walking ability estimation in stroke patients compared to just gait speed.
They gathered longitudinal data during stroke rehab sessions, conducting assessments every three weeks. In the assessment, participants completed a two-part evaluation: first, a two-minute walk test (2MWT) with three IMUs measuring gait features like speed; second, two days of gait measurement using one ankle-mounted IMU. Three daily walking ability measures were calculated, including daily steps and average/max gait speed. A Linear Mixed Model examined gait speed’s association with these measures. Incorporating principal components (PC) from the 2MWT assessed the impact on the model.
The results showed that 81 participants were assessed during rehabilitation, which led to 198 2MWTs and 135 corresponding walking performance measurements. Reducing 106 gait features to nine PCs resulted in 85.1% explained variance. Linear mixed models revealed a weak association between gait speed and average and maximum gait speed in daily life and a moderate association with the number of steps per day. The PCs did not significantly enhance the outcomes compared to models using gait speed alone.
Investigators concluded that IMUs did not significantly improve the estimation of daily life walking ability in people after stroke beyond what gait speed alone provides.
Source: bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-024-03632-0