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Updated: Mar 26, 2026
Clinical Assessment of Spatiotemporal Gait Parameters in Patients and Older Adults
Published on: November 7, 2014
Poor Gait Performance and Prediction of Dementia: Results From a Meta-Analysis
Olivier Beauchet1, Cédric Annweiler2, Michele L Callisaya3
1Division of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Sir Mortimer B. Davis, Jewish General Hospital and Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Dr. Joseph Kaufmann Chair in Geriatric Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Center of Excellence on Aging and Chronic Diseases of McGill Integrated University Health Network, Quebec, Canada.
Background:
Poor gait performance predicts risk of developing dementia. No structured critical evaluation has been conducted to study this association yet. The aim of this meta-analysis was to systematically examine the association of poor gait performance with incidence of dementia.
Methods:
An English and French Medline search was conducted in June 2015, with no limit of date, using the medical subject headings terms "Gait" OR "Gait Disorders, Neurologic" OR "Gait Apraxia" OR "Gait Ataxia" AND "Dementia" OR "Frontotemporal Dementia" OR "Dementia, Multi-Infarct" OR "Dementia, Vascular" OR "Alzheimer Disease" OR "Lewy Body Disease" OR "Frontotemporal Dementia With Motor Neuron Disease" (Supplementary Concept). Poor gait performance was defined by standardized tests of walking, and dementia was diagnosed according to international consensus criteria. Four etiologies of dementia were identified: any dementia, Alzheimer disease (AD), vascular dementia (VaD), and non-AD (ie, pooling VaD, mixed dementias, and other dementias). Fixed effects meta-analyses were performed on the estimates in order to generate summary values.
Results:
Of the 796 identified abstracts, 12 (1.5%) were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis. Poor gait performance predicted dementia [pooled hazard ratio (HR) combined with relative risk and odds ratio = 1.53 with P < .001 for any dementia, pooled HR = 1.79 with P < .001 for VaD, HR = 1.89 with P value < .001 for non-AD]. Findings were weaker for predicting AD (HR = 1.03 with P value = .004).
Conclusions:
This meta-analysis provides evidence that poor gait performance predicts dementia. This association depends on the type of dementia; poor gait performance is a stronger predictor of non-AD dementias than AD.
