Age-Related Changes in Smoothness of Gait of Healthy Children and Early Adolescents

Leban, Bruno

First

Software

;Cimolin, Veronica;Porta, Micaela

Formal Analysis

;Arippa, Federico

Investigation

;Pilloni, Giuseppina

Investigation

;Galli, Manuela;Pau, Massimiliano

Last

Conceptualization

2020-01-01

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Abstract

In this study, we acquired and processed trunk accelerations during level walking in 85 children aged 8- 13 years to calculate spatio-temporal parameters and Harmonic Ratio (HR), which is a metrics representative of gait smoothness and step-to-step symmetry. The results show that while spatio-temporal parameters remain unchanged once normalized considering individuals’ anthropometry, significantly higher values of HR for both the antero-posterior and vertical directions were found in participants aged 12–13 with respect to those of 8–9. This indicates an improvement of gait symmetry, which suggests that the gait maturation process is still ongoing for the age ranges tested here.