Context: Femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS) causes pain and functional limitations. Little is known regarding walking characteristics, volume and intensity evaluated in laboratory and free-living conditions and whether these measures differ between those with FAIS and uninjured individuals.
Objective: To examine the differences in laboratory gait measures and free-living step-based metrics between individuals with FAIS and uninjured control participants.
Design: Comparative, cross-sectional study.
Patients or other participants: We enrolled 25 participants with FAIS and 14 uninjured controls.
Main outcome measures: We evaluated laboratory spatiotemporal gait measures (cadence, velocity, step length, stride length) during self-selected and fast walking speeds using an instrumented walkway. Participants then wore an accelerometer around the waist during waking hours for 7 consecutive days. Free-living step-based metrics included average daily steps, peak 1- and 30-minute cadence, and average daily time spent in walking cadence bands. We compared laboratory gait measures and step-based metrics between groups.
Results: The groups did not differ in laboratory spatiotemporal gait measures during both speeds (all p>0.05). The FAIS group took fewer daily steps (5,346±2,141 vs. 7,338±2,787 steps/day; p=0.030) and had a lower peak 1-minute (92.9±23.9 vs. 119.6±16.3 steps/min; p<0.001) and 30- minute cadences (60.9±27.1 vs. 86.8±22.4 steps/min; p=0.003) compared with uninjured controls, respectively. The FAIS group also spent less time in slow (6.0±3.6 vs. 10.3±3.4 min/day; p=0.001), medium (4.5 + 4.2 vs. 8.9±4.4 min/day; p=0.005), and brisk/moderate (4.5±6.2 vs. 12.2±10.3; p=0.020) cadence bands compared with uninjured controls.
Conclusions: Considering only clinical/laboratory gait measures may not be representative of real- world walking-related PA behavior in individuals with FAIS.
Keywords: Cadence; FAIS; hip morphology; physical activity.