Table 1.
Initial and final contact absolute errors (|E|) for algorithm W-CWT summarized by group and walking protocol (mean ± SD).
Table 2.
Gait parameters calculated by the W-CWT and S-REF with absolute |E| and percentage errors |E|% calculated for W-CWT.
Test statistic is provided for the statistically significant differences.
Table 3.
Number of steps measured by the reference method (S-REF) and the PAM (W-PAM), percentage error |E|%, walking speed and classification of walking activity by the PAM for each disability group.
Values are mean ± sd.
Fig 1.
Relationship between mean percentage error for step detection (|E|%) of the algorithm W-PAM and walking speed according to disability group (EDSS score).
All the participants with disability levels of 5.0 or 5.5 show very low errors and walking speeds above 0.8 m/s. For participants with disability levels of 6.0 or 6.5 the errors increase, particularly at the slowest walking speeds.
Table 4.
Results of the two-way (walking bouts × disability group) ANOVA analysis performed to investigate differences in gait temporal parameters obtained in daily living and laboratory gait and between patients with lower (EDSS = 5.0–5.5) and higher (EDSS = 6.0–6.5) disability.
The p-values are highlighted in bold when they indicate a significant effect (p<0.05). Significant differences in groups after post-hoc analysis are provided for the interaction effect.
Fig 2.
The figure depicts the average values of stride time (A), step time (B), stance time (C) and swing time (D) for the disability groups with EDSS 6.5–6.0 (red) and EDSS 5.5–5.0 (blue) for the daily life walking bouts (sWB, iWB and lWB) and the laboratory gait (intermittent and continuous). Values are mean and 95% CI. * Significant difference between WB types, p < 0.05. + Significant difference between disability groups, p<0.05.
Fig 3.
Variability of temporal parameters.
The figure depicts the variability values of stride time (A), step time (B), stance time (C) and swing time (D) for the disability groups with EDSS 6.5–6.0 (red) and EDSS 5.5–5.0 (blue) for the daily life walking bouts (sWB, iWB and lWB) and the laboratory gait (intermittent and continuous). Values are mean and 95% CI. * Significant difference between WB types, p < 0.05.