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

J Mot Behav. 2020;52(6):694-702. doi: 10.1080/00222895.2019.1680949. Epub 2019 Oct 25.

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.

Keywords: Harmonic Ratio (HR); children; gait maturation; smoothness; symmetry.

MeSH terms

  • Acceleration
  • Adolescent
  • Age Factors
  • Biomechanical Phenomena / physiology
  • Child
  • Child Development / physiology*
  • Female
  • Gait / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Walking / physiology*