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Gait Abnormalities

Human gait depends on a complex interplay of major parts of the nervous, musculoskeletal, and cardiorespiratory systems. The individual gait pattern is influenced by age, personality, mood, and sociocultural factors. The preferred walking speed in older adults is a sensitive marker of general health and survival. Safe walking requires intact cognition and executive control. Gait disorders lead to a loss of personal freedom, falls and injuries and result in a marked reduction in the quality of life. Acute onset of a gait disorder may indicate a cerebrovascular or another acute lesion in the nervous system but also systemic diseases or adverse effects of medication, in particular polypharmacy including sedatives. The prevalence of gait disorders increases from 10 % in people aged 60–69 years to more than 60 % in community-dwelling subjects aged over 80 years. Sensory ataxia due to polyneuropathy, parkinsonism and frontal gait disorders due to subcortical vascular encephalopathy or disorders associated with dementia are among the most common neurological causes. Hip and knee osteoarthritis are common non-neurological causes of gait disorders. With advancing age the proportion of patients with multiple causes or combinations of neurological and non-neurological gait disorders increases. Thorough clinical observation of gait, taking a focused patient history and physical, neurological and orthopedic examinations are basic steps in the categorization of gait disorders and serve as a guide for ancillary investigations and therapeutic interventions. Walking is a common activity of daily living and at the same time a very complex one. It involves all levels of the nervous system and many parts of the musculoskeletal apparatus as well as the cardiorespiratory system. A person’s gait pattern is strongly influenced by age, personality and mood. Moreover, sociocultural factors play a role: for instance, persons living in large cities walk significantly faster than those living in rural areas. This information can be published in our peer reviewed journal with impact factors and are calculated using citations not only from research articles but also review articles (which tend to receive more citations), editorials, letters, meeting abstracts, short communications, and case reports. The inclusion of these publications provides the opportunity for editors and publishers to manipulate the ratio used to calculate the impact factor and try to increase their number rapidly. Impact factor plays a major role for the particular journal. Journal with higher impact factor is considered to be more important than other ones.

Last Updated on: Jul 03, 2024

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