Gait in the elderly

Walking is one of the most common of all human movements. It exists to transport the body safely and efficiently across ground level, uphill or downhill. Walking is learned during the first year of life and reaches maturity around 7 until 60 years. Elderly walking performance then starts to decline and the elderly slow down gradually. Falls are a major cause of morbidity in the elderly and in almost all incidences of falls, some aspects of locomotion have been implicated. With the increased life expectancy of the elderly and their more active lifestyle there is now an emphasis on determining any changes that occur in their gait patterns in order to reduce the frequency of falls, to identify diagnostic measures that are reliable predictors of fall-prone elderly and finally to develop programs for preventing such falls. This review addresses the gait related changes in the elderly in order to pinpoint the effect of normal aging for comparison with different gait deviations related to some pathologies. Spatio-temporal, kinematics, kinetics and EMG data will be reviewed as well as the physiological changes associated with gait and aging. Finally, the selection criteria will be reviewed and recommendation on the urgent need of a valid healthy elderly database will be addressed.