Comparison of the Percentage Stance and Swing Phases and Ground Reaction Force between Young and Older Adults during Walking at different speeds

Objective: comparing the effects of gait at different speeds on spatiotemporal and kinetic parameters can result in better perception of gait pattern differences between young and older adults. Thus the purpose of this study was to compare the percentage of gait stance and swing phases and vertical ground reaction force between young and older adults during walking with different speeds. Methods: 20 young and 20 older adult men with mean age of 25.73 and 66.54 years old respectively, were selected via nonrandom sampling. the percentage of stance and swing phases gait cycle and vertical ground reaction force (VGRF) in stance subphases including weight acceptance, midstance and push off during walking at a 10-meter pathway with slow, medium, and fast speeds, were measured by Kistler Force plate. The data were analyzed running ANOVA with repeated measures and Bonferronii tests. Results: The results showed that in both age groups, with increasing walking speed, the percent of stance phase would decrease and the percent of swing phase was increased (P0.05). Also, at slow speed, there was no significant difference in vertical ground reaction force between two age groups (p>0.05). But, there were significant differences in the VGRFs of weight acceptance and push off phases at medium and fast speeds, between two groups (p