Agreement between the spatio-temporal gait parameters from treadmill-based photoelectric cell and the instrumented treadmill system in healthy young adults and stroke patients

Abstract

Background

Treadmill gait analysis was more advantageous than over-ground walking because it allowed continuous measurements of the gait parameters. The purpose of this study was to investigate the concurrent validity and the test-retest reliability of the OPTOGait photoelectric cell system against the treadmill-based gait analysis system by assessing spatio-temporal gait parameters.

Material/Methods

Twenty-six stroke patients and 18 healthy adults were asked to walk on the treadmill at their preferred speed. The concurrent validity was assessed by comparing data obtained from the 2 systems, and the test-retest reliability was determined by comparing data obtained from the 1 ^st and the 2 ^nd session of the OPTOGait system.

Results

The concurrent validity, identified by the intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC [2, 1]), coefficients of variation (CV _ME), and 95% limits of agreement (LOA) for the spatial-temporal gait parameters, were excellent but the temporal parameters expressed as a percentage of the gait cycle were poor. The test-retest reliability of the OPTOGait System, identified by ICC (3, 1), CV _ME, 95% LOA, standard error of measurement (SEM), and minimum detectable change (MDC ₉₅%) for the spatio-temporal gait parameters, was high.

Conclusions

These findings indicated that the treadmill-based OPTOGait System had strong concurrent validity and test-retest reliability. This portable system could be useful for clinical assessments.