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Instrumental evaluation of gait smoothness and history of falling in older persons: results from an exploratory case–control study

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Abstract

Gait smoothness, perceived when a person walks continuously and uninterruptedly, is associated with an undisrupted gait pattern, good sensorimotor control, and a lower risk of falling. The spectral arc length (SPARC) is a quantitative metric proposed for the evaluation of movement smoothness from the signal obtained by wearable sensors. In this small exploratory case–control study, older persons with and without a history of injurious falls underwent a turn-test while wearing an accelerometer: gait smoothness was estimated by calculating SPARC during the straight and turning phases. Cases seemed to exhibit lower SPARC values during the turning phase, in comparison with control.

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Data availability

Data are available upon request to the corresponding authors. Each request will be evaluated by all co-authors and the local ethical committee.

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Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Engineering, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Viale Branze 38, 25100, Brescia, Italy

    Alberto Zucchelli & Nicola Francesco Lopomo

  2. Aging Research Center, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences, and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Alberto Zucchelli & Alessandra Marengoni

  3. Geriatric Medicine Residency School, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Brescia, Italy

    Daniela Lucente & Chiara Filippini

  4. Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Università degli Studi di Brescia, Brescia, Italy

    Alessandra Marengoni

Authors
  1. Alberto Zucchelli
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  2. Daniela Lucente
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  3. Chiara Filippini
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  4. Alessandra Marengoni
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  5. Nicola Francesco Lopomo
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Contributions

Conception and design of the work: AZ, NFL, AM. Data collection: DL, CF, AZ. Data analysis: AZ, NFL. Interpretation of the results: AZ, AM, NFL. Drafting the article: AZ. Critical revision of the manuscript: all co-authors. Final approval of the manuscript: all co-authors. All the authors fulfill the ICMJE criteria for authorship.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alberto Zucchelli.

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Conflict of interest

All authors declare that no organizations have attempted to influence the study or the writing of the manuscript. They have had no financial relationships in the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in influencing the submitted work and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work. BTS-bioengineering had no role in the design of the study, the collection or the analysis of data, the interpretation of the results, nor the drafting of the article.

Statement of human and animal rights

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of ASST Spedali Civili di Brescia (Brescia, Italy). An informed consent form was signed by all study participants. This study was carried out in keeping with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Informed consent

The informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Zucchelli, A., Lucente, D., Filippini, C. et al. Instrumental evaluation of gait smoothness and history of falling in older persons: results from an exploratory case–control study. Aging Clin Exp Res 35, 1357–1361 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-023-02403-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-023-02403-0

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