Use of a multimemory stopwatch to measure the temporal gait parameters

Before a measurement technique is used clinically, it must be shown to be both valid and reliable. The purpose of this paper was to investigate a novel technique for measuring the temporal phases of the gait cycle using a stopwatch and slow motion video. Two healthy, young adult subjects walked at a range of self-selected walking speeds on a resistive grid walkway. The subjects were videotaped while traversing the walkway. Using video played back at slow motion and a multimemory stopwatch, two student physical therapists independently analyzed the videotapes on five separate occasions. Regression analysis was used to compare the data obtained by each of the raters with those obtained from the walkway. Measurements by both raters correlated highly with those obtained from the walkway. The results indicated a slight bias between the walkway data and the stopwatch technique, but the confidence intervals suggest that the relative timing of key events differed by less than 1%. This study shows that it is possible to get valid and reliable measures of the relative durations of the temporal gait parameters using slow motion video and a multimemory stopwatch.