SPATIO-TEMPORAL AND TIME DOMAIN KINETIC PARAMETER VARIABILITY CHANGES WITH AGE

Abstract

Changes in kinematic parameters and variability in gait cycle duration with age have been associated with adaptations and/or degeneration of the human balance control system and the automated stepping mechanism. We postulated that the degeneration of the control system as related to age will be reflected in variability of selected parameters of the ground reaction force vector that are independent from the gait stride speed. To test this hypothesis we obtained quantitative measures of spatio-temporal parameters and ground reaction forces (GRF) of 45 healthy subjects 21-91 years of age. The variability in cadence and selected vertical and anteroposterior GRF parameters was found to increase significantly with age. These findings are discussed in terms of adaptations for safer gait in the elderly and/or degeneration due to aging.