Discriminant validity and test re-test reproducibility of a gait assessment in patients with vestibular dysfunction.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Schmidheiny, Annatina Swanenburg, Jaap Straumann, Dominik de Bruin, Eling D. Knols, Ruud H.
Abstract	Background Gait function may be impaired in patients with vestibular disorders, making gait assessment in the clinical setting relevant for this patient population. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the discriminant validity of a gait assessment protocol between patients with vestibular disorders and healthy participants. Furthermore, test re-test reproducibility and the measurement error of gait performance measures in patients with vestibular lesions was performed under different walking conditions. Methods Gait parameters of thirty-five patients with vestibular disorders and twenty-seven healthy controls were assessed twice with the GAITRite® system. Discriminant validity, reproducibility (intra class correlation [ICC]) and the measurement error (standard error of measurement [SEM], smallest detectable change [SDC]) were determined for gait speed, cadence and step length. Bland-Altman plots were made to assess systematic bias between tests. Results A significant effect of grouping on gait performance indicates discriminant validity of gait assessment. All tests revealed differences between patients and healthy controls (p < 0.01). The ICCs for test re-test reproducibility were excellent (0.70-0.96) and measurement error showed acceptable SDC values for gait parameters derived from three walking conditions (9-19 %). Bland-Altman plots indicated no systematic bias. Conclusions Good validity and reproducibility of GAITRite® system measurements suggest that this system could facilitate the study of gait in patients with vestibular disorders in clinical settings. The SDC values for gait are generally small enough to detect changes after a rehabilitation program for patients with vestibular disorders.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC4619276&blobtype=pdf
Volume Number	15
DOI	10.1186/s12901-015-0019-8
PubMed Central reference number	PMC4619276
PubMed reference number	26500447
Journal	BMC Ear, Nose, and Throat Disorders [BMC Ear Nose Throat Disord]
e-ISSN	14726815
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2015-10-22
Publisher Place	London
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. © Schmidheiny et al. 2015
Subject Keyword	Vestibular diseases Gait analysis Validity Reliability
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Otorhinolaryngology