Citation

Park J, Ishikawa-Takata K, Tanak S, Bessy K, Tanaka S, Kimurae T. J. Aging Phys. Act. 2016; 25(1): 41-50.

Affiliation

Department of Physical Education, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Human Kinetics Publishers)

DOI

10.1123/japa.2015-0201

PMID

27180730

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the accuracy of uni- and tri-axial accelerometers in monitoring step counts and gait intensity in older people who did or did not use an assistive device. Forty-nine healthy and frail older adults wore uni-axial (Lifecorder, Suzuken Co. Ltd.) and tri-axial accelerometers (Activity Monitor, Matsushita Electronic Works, Ltd., and Active Style Pro, Omron Healthcare Co., Ltd.) during three trials at different gait speeds. All accelerometers gave relatively accurate step counts for healthy older participants compared with direct observation; however, the error was greater for frail older people with assistive devices. Gait intensity detection error was unaffected by gait speed. Among frail older people with assistive devices, the gait intensity error was smaller than for step count error. To accurately assess the steps walked or the gait intensity among frail older people using assistive devices, more study is needed on these groups of participants.

Language: en