Backward Walking and Dual-Task Assessment Improve Identification of Gait Impairments and Fall Risk in Individuals with MS

Table 1

Main effects and interactions for spatiotemporal measures of gait.

Main effects	Velocity (m/s)				Stride length (cm)				Double support time (s)
	Mean (SD)			^2	Mean (SD)			^2	Mean (SD)	F		^2
Group
MS	0.97 (0.40)	4.5	0.043	0.13	104.87 (26.26)	4.36	0.046	0.13	0.50 (0.33)	3.5	0.071	0.12
Control	1.17 (0.33)				116.96 (20.94)				0.37 (0.12)
Direction
Forward	1.28 (0.32)	255.6	<0.001	0.90	127.13 (16.86)	329.8	<0.001	0.92	0.36 (0.11)	10.5	0.003	0.27
Backward	0.84 (0.30)				93.01 (18.87)				0.53 (0.34)
Condition
Single-task	1.10 (0.39)	9.2	0.005	0.24	109.43 (27.23)	2.1	0.160	0.07	0.40 (0.22)	12.2	0.002	0.30
Dual-task	0.99 (0.39)				107.54 (25.88)				0.47 (0.31)
Group x direction
MS forward	1.21 (0.33)	3.6	0.068	0.11	122.49 (17.61)	1.3	0.263	0.04	0.38 (0.12)	3.9	0.059	0.12
MS backward	0.72 (0.30)				86.76 (20.82)				0.63 (0.42)
Control forward	1.37 (0.30)				133.09 (14.00)				0.34 (0.10)
Control backward	0.98 (0.23)				100.82 (12.54)				0.40 (0.12)
Group x condition
MS single-task	1.04 (0.40)	0.87	0.359	0.03	106.09 (25.77)	0.31	0.584	0.01	0.45 (0.27)	1.7	0.199	0.06
MS dual-task	0.91 (0.39)				103.62 (27.06)				0.55 (0.38)
Control single-task	1.21 (0.29)				117.64 (19.19)				0.34 (0.08)
Control dual-task	1.14 (0.37)				116.28 (22.89)				0.39 (0.14)
Direction x condition
Forward single-task	1.33 (0.29)	1.2	0.311	0.06	128.11 (15.33)	0.94	0.341	0.03	0.34 (0.09)	14.2	0.001	0.33
Forward dual-task	1.23 (0.35)				126.15 (18.47)				0.38 (0.13)
Backward single-task	0.90 (0.30)				94.18 (17.59)				0.47 (0.28)
Backward dual-task	0.78 (0.28)				91.80 (20.32)				0.58 (0.39)

Bolded values represent significant effects.