Gait Consistency ADplot

Gait consistency is a factor that is necessary to be addressed during clinical gait analysis assessment.

Usually gait consistency assessment is performed by overlying multiple gait cycles for each gait graph as shown in the example below.

Figure 1. Gait analysis consistency qualitative assessment by overlying multiple gait cycles.

The analysis is performed qualitatively since there are no further data obtained form the created graphs. The qualitative graph assessment is supported by the quantitative assessment of the temporospatial (gait velocity, cadence, stance phase duration etc.) consistency of the gait cycles .

ADplot enhances the gait graph consistency assessment from a qualitative procedure to a quantitative measure.

The Consistency ADplot is using a set of Summary ADplots, one for each gait analysis graph. The summary ADplots present the mean Asymmetry and Deviation indexes that is resulted from the calculation of averaging the individual indexes of the gait cycles used for the consistency assessment.

The source values of the Consistency ADplots may be visualized by creating first, the respective Multi ADplots that contain the individual Deviation and Asymmetry indexes of the selected gait cycles as shown in figure 2.

Figure 2. Multi ADplots of four gait cycles from the same subject.

In the above example, each point is labeled by a digit which refers to the gait cycle that it represents (1 = the first gait cycle 2= the second gait cycle, 3 = the third gait cycle and 4 = the forth gait cycle). A Summary ADplot is then created from the mean values of the above indexes and the calculated Standard Deviation for the Asymmetry and Deviation as shown in Figure 3. On the top left of each Consistency ADplot the respective mean and SD values are drawn with errorbars for reference.

Figure 3. Consistency ADplots from four gait cycles of the same subject.

Consistency ADplot report is a highly informative report. It allows to view the level of mean Asymmetry and Deviation exhibited from the average of several gait cycles. These values are more representative than the values obtained from a single gait cycle. Also they enable the assessment of the consistency of each gait graph. This is clearly observable where ever the Asymmetry and Deviation error bars are small while increased variability is clearly observable where ever the error bars are expanded. The above results are not just qualitative data. They are meaningful numbers that can be reported to document all the above described properties of the subject's gait consistency.

An alternative way fo presenting the Gait Consistency ADplot is to use colored boxes instead of error bars. In the following example, the graphs from another subject are shown. The increased variabilty is clearly visible form the colored boxes, instead of the error bars, that are accordingly expanded.

Figure 4. Consistency ADplots from five gait cycles of the same subject using boxes instead of error bars.

Blue box = Right Side & Red box =Left side.