MEASURES OF GAIT STABILITY: EVALUATION OF THE PROPOSED METHODS COMPARING ADULTS WITH INFANTS AT THE BEGINNING OF INDEPENDENT WALKING

Quantifying stability of locomotion is a more and more interesting question in research. A number of possible measures have been proposed in literature, including methods coming from dynamical systems analysis. The problem in validating these methods is the necessity to identify a-priori instable individuals. Recently Van Schooten et al [2006] used galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) to alter the stability of young adults in order to measure this decreased stability, even though the subjects did not fall. The aim of the present study is to test measures of variability, local stability and orbital stability of trunk kinematics on individuals who experience more than one fall every day, that is infants at the onset of independent walking, whose gait is a-priori assumed unstable.