A novel smartphone application is reliable for repeat administration and comparable to the Tekscan Strideway for spatiotemporal gait

Abstract

Smartphone applications are increasingly being used to measure gait due to their portability and cost-effectiveness. Important reliability metrics are not available for most of these devices. The purpose of this article was to evaluate the test-retest reliability and concurrent validity of spatiotemporal gait using the novel Gait Analyzer smartphone application compared to the Tekscan Strideway. Healthy participants (n=23) completed 12 trials of 10-meter walking, at two separate time points, using Gait Analyzer and while walking across the Tekscan Strideway. The results suggest excellent test-retest reliability for the Gait Analyzer and good test-retest reliability for the Tekscan Strideway for both velocity and cadence. At both time points, these devices were moderately to strongly correlated to one another for both velocity and cadence. These data suggest that the Gait Analyzer and Tekscan Strideway are reliable over time and can comparably calculate velocity and cadence.

Figure 1:

Walking diagram for data collection, participants walked 10-meters in total for 12 consecutive trials using the Gait Analyzer application and directly through the Tekscan Strideway. Once the person reached the stop area, they waited 10 seconds, then turned around and walked back to the start position. During the analysis the first step from the start position and last two steps were removed to reduce gait initiation and termination. The same steps were removed consistently regardless of walking direction (right to left or left to right).

Figure 2:

Bland Altman plots displaying the mean difference from time 1 to time 2 for A) Gait Analyzer and B) Tekscan Strideway gait velocity.

Figure 3:

Bland Altman plots displaying the mean difference from time 1 to time 2 for A) Gait Analyzer and B) Tekscan Strideway gait cadence.