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Published on: August 25, 2020
Gait and its components in typically developing preschoolers
Evi Verbecque1, Luc Vereeck1, Paul Van de Heyning2
1Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, University of Antwerp, Belgium; Multidisciplinary Motor Centre Antwerp (M²OCEAN), University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Insights
This study identified key gait components in preschoolers, finding that "robustness" in gait is linked to balance control. This suggests gait analysis can aid in assessing balance in young children.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric gait analysis
- Motor control in children
- Biomechanical assessment
Background:
- Understanding spatio-temporal gait components is crucial for assessing motor development in preschoolers.
- Gait characteristics can provide insights into underlying balance control mechanisms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify key spatio-temporal gait components in preschool-aged children.
- To correlate these gait components with functional balance test results.
Main Methods:
- Thirty-three typically developing children walked on a treadmill at varying speeds.
- Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to analyze gait parameters (step time, length, width, speed, variability).
- Pearson correlation coefficients assessed relationships between PCA components and Pediatric Balance Scale (PBS) and Timed Up and Go (TUG) test scores.
Main Results:
- PCA identified three gait components: maturation, variability, and robustness.
- The 'robustness' component, characterized by mean step time, BMI, and mean step width, showed a weak but significant correlation with the PBS scores.
- Gait variability was also identified as a significant component.
Conclusions:
- The gait component 'robustness' appears complementary to functional balance assessments in preschoolers.
- This suggests that specific spatio-temporal gait characteristics are relevant for evaluating balance control in this age group.
Objectives:
To determine whether key spatio-temporal components of gait can be identified in children who are preschoolers. Subsequently the obtained components were correlated to results of functional balance tests to determine which of them are related to balance control.
Methods:
Thirty-three typically developing children performed gait on treadmill at three speeds (range 2-4.5km/h), the Pediatric Balance Scale (PBS) and the Timed Up and Go test (TUG). Principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation was performed to detect relations between means and variability of step time, -length and -width, walking speed, age, BMI and leg length. Pearson correlation coefficients between the principal components and z-scores of the PBS and TUG were calculated.
Results:
PCA revealed three principal components. The first component, maturation, showed high loadings for mean step length (0.911), age (0.897), walking speed (0.895), leg length (0.874) and step time variability (-0.672) explaining 37.57% of the variance. The second component, variability of gait, loaded with step length variability (0.819) and step width variability (0.818), explaining 18.02% of the variance. The third component, robustness, showed high loadings for mean step time (0.729), BMI (0.668) and mean step width (0.521), explaining 13.89% of the variance. A significant weak correlation was found between robustness and z-scores of the PBS (r=0.230, p=0.005).
Conclusions:
It seems that the key spatio-temporal component robustness is complementary to functional balance tests, suggesting its relevance in the assessment of balance control in preschoolers.
