Search

Background: During the walk along the streets, older adults are exposed to various visual stimuli that can affect their gait in a harmful or beneficial way., Aims: To evaluate gait strategies during different situations with and without visual stimulation in older adults to identify the influence of the visual stimulus on these gait parameters., Methods: A total of 200 older adults were divided into 4 groups according to age range between 60 and 102 years. Gait was evaluated in the following situations: (1) habitual gait (HG); (2) gait with the visual stimulation (GVS) provided by a pedestrian traffic light, and (3) GVS associated with a cognitive task (GVS-C). The GAITRite Platinum equipment was used to assess gait variables., Results: Comparison of GVS and HG revealed that the visual stimulus influences the gait parameters and promotes a gait speed increase. However, to increase their gait speed, older adults aged 60-89 years used strategies of increased step length and cadence, whereas subjects older than 90 years used only strategies of increased cadence. In addition, comparison of GVS and GVS-C revealed a decrease in gait speed in all age ranges when the cognitive task was added, although this reduction was more pronounced in subjects older than 70 years., Conclusion: Visual stimulus influences the gait parameters in older adults and the strategy used is different depending on their age, a fact that shows that traffic light may be an interesting strategy to improve the gait performance during physical therapy., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

Background: With increases in life expectancy, it is important to understand the influence of aging on gait, given that this activity is related to the independence of older adults and may help in the development of health strategies that encourage successful aging in all phases of this process., Research Question: To compare gait parameters with usual and fast speeds for independent and autonomous older adults throughout the aging process (60 to 102 years old), and also to identify which of the gait variables are best for identifying differences across the different age groups., Methods: Two hundred older adults aged between 60 and 102 years were evaluated. The sample was divided into 3 age groups: 60 to 79 years, 80 to 89 years and 90 years and over. The analyzed gait variables were: speed (meters/s), cadence (steps/min), stride time (seconds), step length (centimeters), double support (percentage of the gait cycle), swing (percentage of the gait cycle), step length variability (CoV%) and stride time variability (CoV%)., Results: Group comparison regarding usual gait and fast gait revealed a significant difference in all gait variables. In addition, it can be seen that variables such as gait speed and step length showed greater effect sizes in intergroup comparison (usual gait: 0.48 and 0.47; fast gait: 0.36 and 0.40; respectively), possibly showing that these variables can better detect the changes observed with increasing age., Conclusion: There are differences in the gait performance of older adults from different age groups for usual and fast gait speeds, which is more evident regarding gait speed and step length variables. We recommend the use of usual gait for the identification of the effects of aging because, besides showing a higher effect size values it is more comfortable and requires less effort from older subjects., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)