PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lucy M. Alderson
AU  - Sandra X Joksaite
AU  - Jennifer Kemp
AU  - Eleanor Main
AU  - Tim Watson
AU  - Frances M Platt
AU  - Mario Cortina-Borja
TI  - Age-related gait standards for healthy children and young people: the GOS-ICH paediatric gait centiles
AID  - 10.1136/archdischild-2018-316311
DP  - 2019 Aug 01
TA  - Archives of Disease in Childhood
PG  - 755--760
VI  - 104
IP  - 8
4099  - http://adc.bmj.com/content/104/8/755.short
4100  - http://adc.bmj.com/content/104/8/755.full
SO  - Arch Dis Child2019 Aug 01; 104
AB  - Objective To develop paediatric gait standards in healthy children and young people.Methods This observational study aims to address the lack of population standards for gait measurements in children. Analysing gait in children affected by neurological or musculoskeletal conditions is an important component of paediatric assessment but is often confounded by developmental changes. The standards presented here do not require clinician expertise to interpret and offer an alternative to developmental tables of normalised gait data. Healthy children aged 1–19 years were recruited from community settings in London and Hertfordshire, UK. The GAITRite walkway was used to record measurements for each child for velocity, cadence, step length, base of support and stance, single and double support (as percentage of gait cycle). We fitted generalised linear additive models for location, scale and shape (gamlss).Results We constructed percentile charts for seven gait variables measured on 624 (321 males) contemporary healthy children using a gamlss package in R. A clinical application of gait standards was explored.Conclusion Age-related, gender-specific standards for seven gait variables were developed and are presented here. They have a familiar format and can be used clinically to aid diagnoses and to monitor change over time for both medical therapy and natural history of the condition. The clinical example demonstrates the potential of the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health Paediatric Gait Centiles to enable meaningful interpretation of change in an individual’s performance and describes characteristic features of gait from a specific population throughout childhood.