Spatiotemporal Measures
There was no significant difference in the comfortable walking speed between the healthy and low-performance elders
(table 3). However, the low-performance group did walk with a slightly slower average cadence (105 steps/min) and longer
(2cm) step length than the healthy group (mean, 115 steps/ min). When asked to walk as fast as possible, the low-perforperformance elders increased cadence by 20% and step length by 12% to achieve a walking speed that was 30% faster on average than the comfortable speed. The percentage of the gait cycle spent in single support did not vary between the groups but did increase significantly with walking speed in the low-performance elderly.