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Old paper ignored

Posted by blenni on 12 Aug 2011 at 20:05 GMT

The claim "To our knowledge this is the first study using accelerometry which shows an association between walking speed and age in free-living, healthy individuals. To date this has previously only been shown in a clinical setting" appears a bit strange. Wirtz and Ries (1992) Behaviour 123 have already shown this correlation between age and walking speed and a sex difference in this correlation and given the reason for the sex difference. A scholar Google search of "walking speed" would have shown this paper and those that quoted it ...

Competing interests declared: I am one of the authors of the ignored paper.
peterwirtz2004@yahoo.com

RE: Old paper ignored

ChristianLederer replied to blenni on 19 Aug 2011 at 18:13 GMT

We regret that that we overlooked Wirtz and Ries (1992) and also Bornstein (1976). Consequently, the sentence "To date this has previously only been shown in a clinical setting" is not is not quite correct.
The correct statement would be "To date this has previously only been shown based on short-term observations and/or in untypical environments."
The claim "... this is the first study using accelerometry which shows an association between walking speed and age in free-living, healthy individuals." is still valid.

Competing interests declared: I am one of the authors of the paper.