How does your gait – or how you walk – relate to your brain health?
Considerably, says Mayo Clinic neurologist Dr Farwa Ali, who specialises in movement disorders.
Assessing a person’s gait can offer insight into various brain health conditions.
The hope is that early diagnosis of gait and balance problems will lead to better treatment and outcomes for patients with degenerative brain disorders.
Dr Farwa explains how testing gait works and what it can tell clinicians.
Put one foot in front of the other.
This simple gait test can tell a clinician a great deal, she says.
This is through “how someone’s body is moving through space, what their balance looks like, what their joints are doing,” she explains.
The gait test can measure, for instance, how fast or slow a person walks, compared to peers in their age group.
It’s then analysed to assess whether a neurological problem is already present.
“For example, someone with Parkinson’s disease may walk slower or with smaller steps, and not move their arms enough,” says Dr Farwa.
Many neurodegenerative diseases affect gait and balance before a diagnosis is ever made.
She is hopeful about improving ways to measure and quantify these.
“We need more research, but my hope is to be able to detect gait abnormalities early and reliably, to augment clinical diagnosis and help clinicians detect patients with neurodegenerative disease earlier,” she says.
Dr Farwa adds that everyone is different, and it’s important to understand why a person might be having issues with their gait.
Analysing gait is just one step in understanding a person’s brain health. – By Deb Balzer/Mayo Clinic News Network/Tribune News Service
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