Agreement Between Temporospatial Gait Parameters of an Electronic Walkway and a Motion Capture System in Healthy and Chronic Stroke Populations

Objectives: To determine agreement between temporospatial gait parameters derived from an electronic walkway and a video-based motion capture system in healthy and chronic stroke subjects. Design: Data were acquired simultaneously by a walkway (GAITRite) and an eight-camera motion capture system (Motion Analysis Corporation) in 52 healthy subjects (age 47 +/- 15 yrs) and 20 people with stroke (age, 58 +/- 20 yrs; 4 +/- 7 yrs poststroke). Gait velocity, stride time, stride length, step length, percent single support, and percent total support were compared by the limits-of-agreement method. Results: The mean differences between the two methods were small and measured 1.5% or less of the parameter mean value. The velocity difference was significantly (P < 0.001) larger in healthy (1.37 +/- 0.93 cm/sec) than in stroke subjects (0.50 +/- 0.63) and in stroke subjects who did not use an assistive device (0.75 +/- 0.67 cm/sec) compared with those who did (0.13 +/- 0.3 2). Conclusions: Electronic walkway and video-based gait analysis provide comparable temporospatial gait information in healthy and stroke subjects. The differences between the two methods were greater with increasing speed but overall still negligible considering expected changes resulting from stroke recovery, experimental manipulations, or therapeutic interventions. Therefore, electronic walkway and video-based gait analysis may be used interchangeably for evaluating temporospatial gait parameters after stroke for clinical and research purposes.