[Gait disorders and falls from the neurologic viewpoint. 2. Clinical aspects]

Any disturbance of gait unmasks itself by a reduced walking velocity. This reduction takes place in order to maintain a low level of energy consumption during walking. The gait phenomenology resulting from velocity reduction is nonspecific and exhibits a compensatory and partly protective walking pattern. Such pattern is intermingled among many neurologic gait abnormalities of old age. Changes in gait patterns or in body equilibrium are among the situations likely to cause a fall in a frail elderly person, particularly, if another disturbance or disease of walking and/or balance control adds to that age-associated pathology. Many neurologic diseases of old age may cause falls by a reduced foot-floor clearance during swing phase, thus, raising the risk of stumbling.