Stride parameters in healthy young and old women--measurement variability on a simple walkway.

Gait analysis in disabled and old probands may be considerably altered by applied devices and the artificial surrounding of a gait laboratory. To circumvent distractions from such factors, we evaluated the gait pattern of healthy women on a simple walkway and supplemented the analysis by reliability measurements. In order to consider age-related changes of gait parameters in health, healthy young (YHW) and old women (OHW) were investigated. Five gait parameters were assessed during 10 independent runs of each individual on the walkway. Multiple-regression analysis revealed a significant relationship between age and gait velocity, stride length, and the coefficient of variation (CV) of step width. Standard errors of mean were uniformly low across all parameters and groups, except for some increase in step width (OHW) and cadence (YHW). Across groups, CV was small for stride length, larger for foot angle, and largest for step width. An acceptably low within-session variability of the stride parameters was found.