Research in the general population has suggested that people who walk faster also tend to have better balance. With that in mind, a team of researchers conducted a small-sample pilot study to explore whether the relationship was true for people who use prosthetic devices. The study concluded that the participants who were faster walkers generally had better balance scores, but there were exceptions that might be due to the challenges of using prosthetic devices. The authors then suggested that walking speed and balance should be considered separately when designing prosthetic care to improve stability and reduce fall risk.
The initial sample of 11 participants was reduced to eight after outliers were removed from the final analysis. The final participant group, which included people with upper- and lower-limb amputations, was made up of five men and three women with a mean age of 52 years.
Participants completed two tests: a Ten-Meter Walk Test to measure speed, and a Narrowing Beam Walking Test to assess balance. The participants’ mean Ten-Meter Walk Test velocity was 1.16m/s, and the mean Narrowing Beam Walking Test score was 11.38, which, according to the researchers, indicated a medium to strong correlation between fast walking speed and high balance scores when the outliers were excluded.
While the findings were consistent with prior research conducted in other populations, the study’s authors concluded that the outliers suggested that the relationship between gait speed and balance is not universal across people with limb loss.
The study, “Exploring the correlation between gait speed and balance in limb prosthesis users: A pilot study,” was published in the Canadian Prosthetics & Orthotics Journal.
