Abstract
Technological advances in inertial sensors allow for monitoring of daily-life gait characteristics as a proxy for fall risk. The quality of daily-life gait could serve as a valuable outcome for intervention trials, but the uptake of these measures relies on their power to detect relevant changes in fall risk. We collected daily-life gait characteristics in 163 older people (aged 77.5 ± 7.5, 107♀) over two measurement weeks that were two weeks apart. We present variance estimates of daily-life gait characteristics that are sensitive to fall risk and estimate the number of participants required to obtain sufficient statistical power for repeated comparisons. The provided data allows for power analyses for studies using daily-life gait quality as outcome. Our results show that the number of participants required (i.e., 8 to 343 depending on the anticipated effect size and between-measurements correlation) is similar to that generally used in fall prevention trials. We propose that the quality of daily-life gait is a promising outcome for intervention studies that focus on improving balance and mobility and reducing falls.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 4388 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Sensors (Switzerland) |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 20 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 11 Oct 2019 |
Funding
Funding: This work was supported by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research [NWO TOP NIG grant 91209021] and the Human Frontier Science program [HFSP long-term fellowship number LT001080/2017].
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Dutch Organization for Scientific Research | |
| NWO TOP NIG | TOP |
| Human Frontier Science Program | |
| Human Frontier Science Program | LT001080/2017 |
| Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | 91209021 |
Keywords
- Accelerometry
- Accidental falls
- Activity monitoring
- Aged
- Intervention studies