Spontaneous walking characteristics of patients with peripheral arterial disease

Background: Walking rehabilitation is the cornerstone of patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) treatment. In order to propose a personalised walking rehabilitation program to each patient, it is important to know the PAD-patients walking characteristics. Such data are lacking in the literature. The aim of this study was to analyse the spontaneous walking characteristics of PAD patients. Patients and methods: This study was conducted between May 2016 and March 2018. Walking characteristics (cadence, stride, number of daily walking episodes, duration of an episode, distance covered during an episode, daily total walking duration and distance, walking speed) were recorded by Withings Pulse O2® activity trackers for one week in patients with asymptomatic or symptomatic PAD. Walking intensity was classified as ambling pace (<2 METs), slow walking (2-3 METs) and active walking (>3 METs). Study protocol has been approved by an independent ethics committee. Results: Eighty-seven patients were included (males 87%, mean age 66 ± 9 years, intermittent claudication 86%, right ankle brachial index (ABI) = 0.80 ± 0.19 and left ABI = 0.79 ± 0.15). The mean recording duration was 8 ± 1.2 days. Most of the steps were shuffling pace (shuffling pace 55.7%, active walking 32.8%, slow walking 11.5%). There was no significant difference between weekdays and weekend days nor for cadence, stride, episode duration, distance covered during an episode, number of daily walking episodes, daily total walking duration and distance. The average duration of active walking episodes was 3 minutes. Duration of active walking was less than 3 minutes in 66% of patients with a mean duration of 1 minute and 55 seconds. Conclusion: Analysis of PAD patients spontaneous walking characteristics with an activity tracker can get the maximum active walking duration achieved by each patient and be useful to offer a personalised walking rehabilitation program.