Slowness in elderly gait.

The aim of this research was to better understand how gait slows with age. We analyzed the kinematic parameters of locomotion (velocity, stride length, cycle duration, swing and double support durations), and their interrelationships both in the slowing process due to aging and in intentional modulations of velocity. The experiments were carried out on a group of 67 elderly adults (aged 60 to 80+) walking with a free gait and a fast gait. This group was compared to a young population in equivalent situations. The results show that the main characteristics of the elderly gait are the shortening of strides and the increasing of the double support phase. However, these properties seem to be due to the slowness of the elderly gait more than to more specific alterations affecting this population since identical features were also observed in the slow gait of the young subjects. Furthermore, the ability to intentionally modulate velocity observed in this study was not altered by aging. These results suggest that elderly gait can be said to be normal if one takes the velocity into account.