BACKGROUND In older adults, depression has been associated with increased fall risk, but the reasons for this link are not fully clear. Given parallels between major depression and Parkinson's disease, we hypothesized that major depression and related affective disorders would be associated with impairment in the ability to regulate the stride-to-stride fluctuations in gait cycle timing. METH...

Stride sequences of healthy gait are characterized by persistent long-range correlations, which become anti-persistent in the presence of an isochronous metronome. The latter phenomenon is of particular interest because auditory cueing is generally considered to reduce stride variability and may hence be beneficial for stabilizing gait. Complex systems tend to match their correlation structure ...

PURPOSE To evaluate fall-relevant gait features in older glaucoma patients. METHODS The GAITRite Electronic Walkway was used to define fall-related gait parameters in 239 patients with suspected or manifest glaucoma under normal usual-pace walking conditions and while carrying a cup or tray. Multiple linear regression models assessed the association between gait parameters and integrated visu...

INTRODUCTION Inclined walking while carrying a loaded backpack induces fatigue, which may destabilize gait and lead to injury. Stochastic resonance (SR) technology has been used to stabilize spatiotemporal gait characteristics of elderly individuals but has not been tested on healthy recreational athletes. Herein, we determined if sustained vigorous walking on an inclined surface while carrying...

BACKGROUND Recent evidence suggests that impaired central sensorimotor integration may contribute to deficits in movement control experienced by people with chronic ankle instability (CAI). This study compared the effects of dual-task and walking speed on gait variability in individuals with and without CAI. METHODS Sixteen subjects with CAI and 16 age- and gender-matched, able-bodied control...

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting the coefficient of variation (CV) of stride time in an exercise intervention for the elderly without falling history. [Subjects and Methods] The subjects were 42 elderly women who had participated in a care prevention program for 12 weeks. Stride time CV, motor function, movement ability, balance, Modified Falls Effica...

This paper presents a real-time and on-chip gait measurement algorithm used in our Gait Measurement System (GMS). Our GMS is a small foot-mounted device based on an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), which contains an accelerometer and a gyroscope. The GMS can compute spatio-temporal gait parameters in real-time and transmit them to a remote receiver. Measured gait parameters include cadence, vel...