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. 2021 Mar 17;23(3):359.
doi: 10.3390/e23030359.

Are Gait and Balance Problems in Neurological Patients Interdependent? Enhanced Analysis Using Gait Indices, Cyclograms, Balance Parameters and Entropy

Malgorzata Syczewska  1 , Ewa Szczerbik  1 , Malgorzata Kalinowska  1 , Anna Swiecicka  1 , Grazyna Graff  1
Affiliations

Are Gait and Balance Problems in Neurological Patients Interdependent? Enhanced Analysis Using Gait Indices, Cyclograms, Balance Parameters and Entropy

Malgorzata Syczewska et al. Entropy (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: Balance and locomotion are two main complex functions, which require intact and efficient neuromuscular and sensory systems, and their proper integration. In many studies the assumption of their dependence is present, and some rehabilitation approaches are based on it. Other papers undermine this assumption. Therefore the aim of this study was to examine the possible dependence between gait and balance in patients with neurological or sensory integration problems, which affected their balance.

Methods: 75 patients (52 with neurological diseases, 23 with sensory integration problems) participated in the study. They underwent balance assessment on Kistler force plate in two conditions, six tests on a Balance Biodex System and instrumented gait analysis with VICON. The gait and balances parameters and indices, together with entropy and cyclograms were used for the analysis. Spearman correlation, multiple regression, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis were used as analytical tools.

Results: The analysis divided patients into 2 groups with 100% correctly classified cases. Some balance and gait measures are better in the first group, but some others in the second.

Conclusions: This finding confirms the hypothesis that there is no direct link between gait and balance deficits.

Keywords: balance; gait; neurological problems.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cyclograms: (a) for a healthy subject, (b) exemplary one from one of the patients. The numbers in squares are perimeters of each cyclogram. The upper left graph represents cyclogram of hip-pelvis in sagittal plane, upper right: knee-hip in sagittal plane, lower left: ankle-knee in sagittal plane, and lower right the cyclogram of hip-pelvis in frontal plane.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The hierarchical graph of the cluster analysis. X axis—cases, Y-axis—Euclidean distance on which order of clustering was done. The vertical line shows the division into two groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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