USE OF A MULTIMEMORY STOPWATCH TO MEASURE THE TEMPORAL GAIT PARAMETERS

Before a measurement technique is used clinically, it must be shown to be both valid and reliable. The purpose of this paper was to investig ate a novel technique for measuring the temporal phases of the gait cy cle using a stopwatch and slow motion video. Two healthy, young adult subjects walked at a range of self-selected walking speeds on a resist ive grid walkway. The subjects were videotaped while traversing the wa lkway. Using video played back at slow motion and a multimemory stopwa tch, two student physical therapists independently analyzed the videot apes on five separate occasions. Regression analysis was used to compa re the data obtained by each of the raters with those obtained from th e walkway. Measurements by both raters correlated highly with those ob tained from the walkway. The results indicated a slight bias between t he walkway data and the stopwatch technique, but the confidence interv als suggest that the relative timing of key events differed by less th an 1%. This study shows that it is possible to get valid and reliable measures of the relative durations of the temporal gait parameters usi ng slow motion video and a multimemory stopwatch.