Health care providers usually check older adults' gait(or way of walking)regularly. An abnormal gait or onewith very small slow steps or one with noticeable swaying, shuffling, or hesitation - can be due to a number of health problems.

Strokes, Parkinson's disease, and other neurological diseases can cause abnormal changes in gait, or "gait disorders." So can non-neurological diseases like arthritis, heart disease or breathing problems. All of these health problems are more common among older adults than younger ones.

New Research in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

To find out more about gait disorders in older adults, researchers studied 468 older volunteers for five years. All lived in the community, rather than in nursing homes. At the start of the study, their ages ranged from 70 to 99.

Every year or so for five years, the researchers checked each volunteer's gait and gave him or her a thorough medical check up to see if he or she had any neurological or other health problems.

At the start of the study, about 35% of the older adults had abnormal gaits, the researchers found. Over the next five years, a growing number of the adults in the study developed abnormal gaits.

The researchers found that older adults with gait disorders were more likely to end up in an institution or die during the course of the study than adults with normal gait. In fact, nearly 60% of the older adults who died during the study had gait disorders. The researchers also found that older adults with more severe gait disorders were more likely to end up in an institution or to die during the 5-year period than those with mild gait disorders.

Because gait disorders are usually a sign of some underlying health problem - such as Parkinson's disease or heart disease -- that can increase an older person's risk of death, health care providers should check for abnormal gait. If providers find that an older person has a gait disorder, they should treat it and any underlying conditions associated with it.

What Should I Do?

Ask your health care provider to check your gait regularly. If he or she thinks that you may have a gait disorder, he or she may perform specific tests to evaluate your gait further. Your provider should look for underlying causes of any gait problem - such as arthritis or heart disease or medications that might affect gait-and address these.

For more information about walking problems, visit http://www.healthinaging.org/agingintheknow/chapters_ch_trial.asp?ch=10.

The summary above is from the full report titled, "Epidemiology of Gait Disorders in Community Residing Older Adults." It is in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (Volume 54, Issue 2). The report is authored by Joe Verghese, Aaron LeValley, Charles B Hall, Mindy J Katz, Anne F Ambrose, and Richard B Lipton.