RELIABILITY OF WALKING SPEED, STRIDE TIME AND STRIDE LENGTH VARIABILITY USING FEEDBACK-CONTROLLED TREADMILL

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the test-retest reliability of walking speed, stride time and stride length variability using a feedback-controlled treadmill. Ten subjects performed 3 trials of walking experiment for 5 min with a feedback-controlled treadmill. To check the reliability of gait parameters such as walking speed, average and variability (i.e. coefficient of variance, CV) of stride time and stride length, those parameters were compared in this study. Results showed that all gait variables were confirmed the reliability within-trial (walking speed: intra-class correlation, ICC=0.996, standard error of measurement, SEM=0.03, average stride time: ICC=0.989, SEM=0.01, stride time variability: ICC=0.680, SEM=0.18, average stride length: ICC=9.994, SEM=0.01, stride length variability: ICC=0.830, SEM=0.25). This feedback-controlled treadmill can be used for various gait dynamics study using spatio-temporal variables.