Agreement between the GAITRite walkway system and a stopwatch-footfall count method for measurement of temporal and spatial gait parameters.

Abstract

To determine the agreement for measurements of stride length, cadence, and walking speed obtained from the GAITRite system and the stopwatch-footfall count technique. Criterion standard. Research laboratory in a physical therapy education program. Forty healthy volunteers (13 men, 27 women) without lower-extremity injury. Participants walked across a GAITRite mat with embedded pressure sensors at their self-selected walking speed. Simultaneously, an examiner used a stopwatch to record the elapsed time necessary to cross the mat and counted the number of complete footfalls. Walking speed, cadence, and stride-length measures were compared between the GAITRite system and the stopwatch-footfall count technique. Correlation coefficients comparing both systems were .97 for walking speed, .75 for cadence, and .85 for stride length. Ninety-five percent of the time we would expect the between-methods differences to range between .09 and -.05m/s for walking speed, between -1.5 and -24.3 steps/min for cadence, and between .01 and .37m for stride length. This study shows that the GAITRite and stopwatch-footfall count methods lack clinically acceptable agreement for the measurements of cadence and stride length in a group of healthy volunteers walking at their self-selected speeds. Clinicians who require precise measurement of cadence and stride length should consider using the GAITRite system instead of the stopwatch-footfall count technique.