Overground vs treadmill gait

NewsBot · Aug 15, 2006

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A kinematic and kinetic comparison of overground and treadmill walking in healthy subjects.
Riley PO, Paolini G, Croce UD, Paylo KW, Kerrigan DC
Gait Posture. 2006 Aug 11;

INTRODUCTION: Gait evaluation protocols using instrumented treadmills will be increasingly used in the near future. For this reason, it must be shown that using instrumented treadmills will produce measures of the ground reaction force adequate for inverse dynamic analysis, and differences between treadmill and overground gait must be well characterized.

METHODS: Overground walking kinetics were estimated with the subjects walking at their self-selected comfortable walking speed. For the treadmill gait trials, the subjects walked on two treadmills, such that heel-strike occurred on the forward treadmill and toe-off occurred on the trailing treadmill. The treadmill was set to the average overground walking speed. Overground and treadmill data were evaluated using Vicon Plug-in Gait. The differences between the maxima and minima of kinematic and kinetic parameters for overground and treadmill gait were evaluated.

RESULTS: The kinematics of treadmill and overground gait were very similar. Twelve of 22 kinematic parameter maxima were statistically significantly different (p<0.05), but the magnitude of the difference was generally less than 2 degrees . All GRF maxima were found to be statistically significantly smaller for treadmill versus overground gait (p<0.05) as were 15 of 18 moment, and 3 of 6 power maxima. However, the magnitude of the differences was comparable to the variability in normal gait parameters. The sagittal plane ankle moments were not statistically different for treadmill and overground gait.

DISCUSSION: We have shown that treadmill gait is qualitatively and quantitatively similar to overground gait. Differences in kinematic and kinetic parameters can be detected in matched comparisons, particularly in the case of kinetic parameters. However, the magnitudes of these differences are all within the range of repeatability of measured kinematic parameters. Thus, the mechanics of treadmill and overground gait are very similar.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Having demonstrated the essential equivalence of treadmill and overground gait, it is now possible for clinical movement analysis to take advantage of treadmill-based protocols.
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davidh · Aug 18, 2006

Intersting, if only for the omissions in the Abstract.
N=?
Age range?

And finally, what is (their version of) normal overground. Is it absolutely hard and flat, such as one might find in a gait lab or clinical setting?
Or does it more closely follow the approximation of hard and flat that most of us weightbear on, and ambulate over for most of the time?
:confused:
Regards,
david

NewsBot · Oct 4, 2021

Walking Indoors, Outdoors, and on a Treadmill: Gait Differences in in Healthy Young and Older Adults
Abigail C.Schmitt et al
Gait & Posture; 28 September 2021

Highlights
•Spatiotemporal gait measures differ between indoor, outdoor, and treadmill walking.
•Walking outdoors results in faster gait with longer steps and more variability.
•Treadmill walking results in slower, less variable gait with shorter steps.
•Individual spatiotemporal variables do not interact with age.
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Background
Although human gait is typically studied in a laboratory environment, the findings of laboratory-based gait assessments are often applied to daily life scenarios. Assessing gait in varied conditions may offer a better understanding of the influence of environment on gait performance.

Research questions
How do spatiotemporal gait measures differ between indoor overground walking, outdoor walking, and treadmill walking in healthy adults? Do different walking environments exaggerate age-related alterations in gait performance in older compared to young adults?

Methods
30 young (18-30yrs) and 28 older adults (60-80yrs) completed four randomized conditions at their typical, comfortable walking pace: 1) 8 meters of indoor walking, 2) continuous indoor walking, 3) treadmill walking, and 4) outdoor walking on a sidewalk. Wearable inertial sensors recorded gait data and the magnitudes and variability (in standard deviations) of the following gait measures were computed: cadence, percent double support, stride length (with sample entropy), and gait velocity.

Results
Despite the lack of significant univariate interactions between group and walking condition, significant main effects for condition and group were observed in both the magnitude and variability analyses. Treadmill walking resulted in a slower gait with shorter, less variable strides (p < .001), while walking outdoors resulted in faster gait with longer strides (p < .001) compared to other walking conditions. Stride length regularity was reduced when walking outdoors compared to treadmill walking (p = .019).

Significance
The results showed that the effects of walking condition on gait measures were more dramatic than participant age, and gait performance differs between walking environments in both older and younger adults. Since daily life gait encompasses both tightly controlled and unconstrained, free-living walking, researchers and clinicians should use caution when generalizing gait performance across walking conditions. Measures of gait performance typically used in laboratory gait analyses may not adequately characterize daily life gait in indoor and outdoor environments.
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