Validity of a Wireless Gait Analysis Tool (Wi-GAT) in assessing spatio-temporal gait parameters at slow, preferred and fast walking speeds

BACKGROUND: The wireless gait assessment tool (Wi-GAT) measures have been shown to have good to excellent concurrent validity with preferred walking speeds, however, the validity of the Wi-GAT measures at slow and fast walking speeds is unknown. OBJECTIVE: To establish validity of the Wi-GAT spatio-temporal gait measures at slow, fast, and preferred walking speeds. METHODS: Twenty two healthy adult volunteers, with a mean age of 25.7 (± 5.3) participated in this study. The spatio-temporal gait variables of each participant were concurrently recorded using the GAITrite and the Wi-GAT system, while the participants performed 3 trials for each walking speed in a randomized order. Intraclass correlation analyses were performed to establish the agreement between the measures recorded by the GAITrite and Wi-GAT systems. RESULTS: Walking speed measured both by the Wi-GAT and the GAITrite systems showed excellent agreement for preferred (ICC = 0.979 p< 0.001), slow (ICC = 0.989 p< 0.001) and fast (ICC = 0.967 p< 0.001) walking speeds. Most gait parameters recorded at slow walking speed showed good (ICC > 0.70) to excellent (ICC > 0.85) agreement. CONCLUSIONS: Gait parameters recorded by the Wi-GAT system showed fair to excellent validity for preferred and slow walking speeds.