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 R 2 changes with single- and dual-task gait speed. Results— Single-task gait speed explained 15.3% of the variance in daily ambulatory activity ( P =0.04). Adding dual-task gait speed to the regression model increased the variance explained by an additional 20.6% ( P =0.04). Conclusions— Gait speed assessed under attention-demanding conditions may improve explanation of variance in daily ambulatory activity after stroke.