Reduced gait automaticity in female patients with chronic fatigue syndrome: Case-control study.
Eyskens, Jan B, Nijs, Jo, Wouters, Kristien et al. · Journal of rehabilitation research and development · 2015 · DOI
Quick Summary
This study tested how automatically women with ME/CFS can walk while doing other things at the same time. Researchers asked women with ME/CFS and healthy women to walk, close their eyes, and solve a math problem. Most women with ME/CFS stopped walking when they had to do the math problem with their eyes closed, while most healthy women kept walking. This suggests that walking requires more conscious effort and attention in ME/CFS patients than in healthy people.
Why It Matters
This is the first study to objectively demonstrate that walking requires significantly more conscious attention and mental effort in ME/CFS patients compared to healthy people. This finding helps explain why ME/CFS patients report difficulty with prolonged walking and validates a core symptom that has been difficult to measure objectively. Understanding these gait impairments could lead to targeted rehabilitation strategies and better functional assessments for this population.
Observed Findings
55.9% of ME/CFS patients stopped walking during the dual-task condition (eyes closed + cognitive task) versus only 5.3% of controls
23.5% of ME/CFS patients looked toward the ground at gait initiation compared to 2.6% of controls
Reduced gait automaticity was observed in ME/CFS patients with statistical significance (p < 0.001)
Test-retest reliability for the global stopping measure was moderate
Walking is less automatic and requires greater conscious attention in ME/CFS patients compared to healthy controls
The dual-task walking test is a simple, feasible objective measure of a previously difficult-to-quantify ME/CFS symptom
Interventions targeting dual-task training or gait automaticity could be a useful approach to address functional limitations in ME/CFS
Abnormal gait control may contribute to the walking difficulties and fatigue reported by ME/CFS patients
Remaining Questions
Does reduced gait automaticity improve or worsen with ME/CFS disease progression, and does it correlate with other disease severity markers?
What This Study Does Not Prove
This study does not identify the biological cause of reduced gait automaticity in ME/CFS—it only demonstrates the phenomenon exists. The study does not prove whether the automaticity loss is primarily neurological, metabolic, or related to deconditioning, nor does it establish whether improving gait automaticity would reduce overall ME/CFS fatigue or disability. The findings are limited to female patients and cannot be generalized to men with ME/CFS.
Tags
Symptom:Fatigue
Method Flag:PEM Not DefinedSmall SampleSex-Stratified