Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Walk with Altered Step Time and Step Width Variability as Compared with Healthy Control Subjects

Compared with control subjects, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have an increased incidence of falls and demonstrate balance deficits and alterations in mediolateral trunk acceleration while walking. Measures of gait variability have been implicated as indicators of fall risk, fear of falling, and future falls.To investigate whether alterations in gait variability are found in patients with COPD as compared with...