Step rate dominance in estimation of the maximum gait speed for elderly women W Mizuno1, M Iwami2, H Tanaka2 |
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1Graduate School of Advanced Health Science, BASE, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology & Waseda University, Japan |
| The present study examined how accurately elderly women could estimate their own maximum walking speed (WSmax). Ten subjects observed apparent motions of footprints that represent human gait patterns. Footprints motions consisted of the four different gait patterns combined with step length (SL) and step rate (SR): actual combination of each subject gait, it reversed combination, different SR with constant SL, and different SL with constant SR. Footprints walking was projected onto a screen on the floor in the real scale. In each of the four conditions, the speeds of footprints walking randomly varied between ±20% of the subject’s WSmax. The subjects determined whether she could maintain the speed of the footprints walking. Constant error and sensitivity in the estimation of WSmax were calculated from the best fitting logistic functions to subject’s judgments. The mean constant error was 3.6±5.7% of the subject’s WSmax. The mean sensitivity for the constant SL condition was significantly smaller than those for the other conditions. These results suggest that elderly women could accurately estimate their WSmax or overestimated it to some extent. It is likely that the aged people may be more sensitive to the changes of SR in perception of the maximum walking boundary. |
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