Relationship Between Dual-Task Gait Speed and Walking Activity Poststroke.

Background And Purpose: Gait speed does not adequately predict whether stroke survivors will be active in the community. This may be because traditional single-task gait speed does not sufficiently reproduce the demands of walking in the real world. This study assessed whether dual-task gait speed accounts for variance in daily ambulatory activity above what can be predicted with habitual (single task) gait speed in community-dwelling stroke survivors.

Methods: Twenty-eight community-dwelling individuals, 58.2 years of age (SD=16.6), 8.9 months poststroke (interquartile range, 3.7-19.4), completed a gait and cognitive task in single- and dual-task conditions. Daily ambulatory activity was captured using a physical activity monitor. A regression analysis examined changes with single- and dual-task gait speed.

Results: Single-task gait speed explained 15.3% of the variance in daily ambulatory activity (=0.04). Adding dual-task gait speed to the regression model increased the variance explained by an additional 20.6% (=0.04).

Conclusions: Gait speed assessed under attention-demanding conditions may improve explanation of variance in daily ambulatory activity after stroke.