Remote gait assessment in people with knee osteoarthritis using wearable sensors appears reliable but yields results slightly different from those achieved in the laboratory, researchers from Boston University have found.
As reported at the OARSI 2022 World Congress, there was "good to excellent reliability" in repeated measures collected by patients at home while being instructed via video teleconferencing.
Agreement was "moderate to excellent" when the findings were compared with those recorded in the lab, Michael J. Rose of Boston University reported at the congress, sponsored by the Osteoarthritis Research Society International.
"People walked faster and stood up faster in the lab," Rose said. "Later we found that the difference in gait speed was statistically significant between the lab and home environment."
This has been suggested previously and implies that data collected at home may have "greater ecological validity," he observed.
Accelerated Adoption of Telehealth
Assessing how well someone walks or can stand from a seated position are well known and important assessments in knee OA, but these have but have traditionally only been done in large and expensive gait labs, Rose said.
Wearable technologies, such as the ones used in the study he presentedcould help move these assessments out into the community. This is particularly timely considering the increased adoption of telehealth practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
