Introduction: Few studies have explored whether gait measured continuously within a community setting can identify individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study tests the feasibility of this method to identify individuals at the earliest stage of AD.
Methods: Mild AD (n = 38) and cognitively normal control (CNC; n = 48) participants from the University of Kansas Alzheimer's Disease Center Registry wore a GT3x+ accelerometer continuously for 7 days to assess gait. Penalized logistic regression with repeated five-fold cross-validation followed by adjusted logistic regression was used to identify gait metrics with the highest predictive performance in discriminating mild AD from CNC.
Results: Variability in step velocity and cadence had the highest predictive utility in identifying individuals with mild AD. Metrics were also associated with cognitive domains impacted in early AD.
Discussion: Continuous gait monitoring may be a scalable method to identify individuals at-risk for developing dementia within large, population-based studies.
Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; accelerometer; digital biomarker; gait.
© 2020 The Authors. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Alzheimer's Association.