Thursday, May 29, 2008

It's In The Way You Walk

Or it could be anyhow.

Researchers have stumbled (pardon the pun) upon an interesting discovery. It appears that people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) walk a little differently than those without it.

Methods: Twelve individuals with CFS and 12 matched controls participated in the study. Each subject walked along a 7.2m walkway three times at each of three velocities: self-selected, relatively slow (0.45 ms-1) and a relatively fast (1.34 ms-1).

A motion analysis system was used to investigate the sagittal plane joint kinematics and temporal spatial parameters of gait.

Results: At self-selected velocity there were significant differences between the two groups for all the temporal and spatial parameters measured, including gait velocity (P=0.002).
Very interesting. But does it get us anywhere?
Conclusions: The self-selected gait velocity and/or pattern of individuals with CFS may be used to monitor the disease process or evaluate therapeutic intervention.
I guess that's something. It's an interesting find nonetheless.

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