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Identification of healthy elderly fallers and non-fallers by gait analysis under dual-task conditions

Laboratoire d'Etudes de la Motricité Humaine, Faculté des Sciences du Sport et de l'Education Physique, Lille and Laboratoire d'Analyse du Mouvement, Hôpital Roger Salengro, Lille, France

A Thevenon

Hôpital Swinghedauw, Service de Rééducation et de Réadaptation Fonctionnelles, Lille, France

E Watelain

Laboratoire d'Automatique de Mécanique et d'Informatique industrielles et Humaines, Université de Valenciennes, Valenciennes, France

C Fabre

Laboratoire d'Etudes de la Motricité Humaines, Faculté des Sciences du Sport et de l'Education Physique, Lille, France

Objective: We compared falling and non-falling healthy elderly subjects to identify balance disorders associated with falling. Gait parameters were determined when carrying out single and dual tasks.

Design: Case comparison study.

Setting: Subjects were studied in the gait laboratory at Hopital Roger Salengro, Lille, France.

Subjects: A group of 40 healthy elderly women were assigned to one of two groups according to their falling history: 21 fallers aged 70.4±6.4 years and 19 non-fallers aged 67.0±4.8 years. All subjects performed first a single leg balance test with two conditions (eyes open/closed). Then, gait parameters were analysed under single-task and dual motor-task conditions (walking with a glass of water in the hand).

Main measures: Falls, number of times suspended foot touched the floor during the single leg balance test, cadence, speed, stride time, step time, single-support time, stride length and step length during walking under single- and dual-task conditions.

Results: During the single leg balance test, fallers placed their feet on the floor three times more often than non-fallers under eyes open conditions (P < 0.05) and twice as often under eyes closed conditions (P < 0.05). In the single-task condition, no significant difference in gait parameters was reported between fallers and non fallers. There was a significant difference (P < 0.05) in the gait parameters (cadence, speed, stride and step time, single-support time) between fallers and non-fallers under dual-task conditions.

Conclusions: Dual tasks perturb walking in fallers, who exhibit deteriorated static balance. Consequently, walking under dual-task conditions plus a single leg balance test could be helpful in detecting walking disorders and planning physiotherapy to prevent falls.

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