Gait and dementia: There's far more to the way we walk than we thought

This article was published on Monash Lens 25 October 2019. See also our 19 June 2019 story featuring the research.

Dementia is the main cause of disability in older people all over the world. About 47 million people are affected, with estimates this will reach 140 million by 2050. In Australia, dementia is the leading cause of death for women and the second-leading cause of death for men. Approximately 415,000 people currently live with dementia in Australia; this is expected to rise to an estimated 1.2 million by 2056.

Walking the walk: using gait to gauge dementia

by Anne Crawford

Monash University Central and Peninsula Clinical School researchers have shown that a person’s gait can predict whether they are headed for dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease, and which specific brain functions are involved in this cognitive decline.

Associate Professor Michele Callisaya and Professor Velandai Srikanth, supervising first author PhD student Ms Oshadi Jayakody from the University of Tasmania, investigated whether variability from one step to the next during walking, and gait speed, were related to cognitive decline over time. Their study was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.