| dc.description.abstract | Obesity, a global clinical and public health challenge, has been documented to negatively
affect spatiotemporal gait parameters. Although, weight reduction exercise programme is
routinely used in the management of obesity, it has not been well documented if such
intervention leads to improvement in spatiotemporal gait parameters. This study was
carried out to investigate the effects of a twelve-week weight reduction exercise
programme on selected spatiotemporal gait parameters of obese individuals and compare
with those of their normal weight counterparts.
In this quasi-experimental study, 60 participants (30 obese and 30 age-matched normal
weight individuals) were recruited and assigned into obese and normal weight groups
respectively but only 58 participants (30 obese and 28 normal-weights) completed it.
Obese participants had 12-weeks of weight reduction exercises while normal weight
participants did not. Gait parameters: Walking Speed (WS), Cadence (CD), Step Length
(SL), Step Width (SW) and Stride Length (SLT) were measured at baseline and at the end
of weeks 4, 8 and 12 of the study. The data were summarized using descriptive statistics
and further analysed using Repeated measures ANOVA and independent t-test at alpha
level set at 0.05.
The ages of the Obese group (OBG) and normal weight group (NWG) (32.0± 8.26 years
and 29.32± 6.06 years) were comparable but obese participants weighed significantly
more and were significantly shorter than their normal weight counterparts. At baseline,
the OBG had significantly lower WS (1.09± 0.17m/s; 1.29 ± 0.17 m/s), SL (58.68±
7.42cm; 66.42± 6.51cm) and SLT (117±14.86 cm; 133±13.02 cm) but higher CD (14.47±
0.97steps/min; 12.82± 0.39steps/min) and SW (13.67±4.15 cm; 9.79± 1.78 cm) than the
NW group. At week 12, the group’s WS (1.35±0.19 m/s; 1.35±0.32 m/s), SL
(66.83±7.81cm; 67.91±6.53cm), SLT (134±16.68 cm; 136±13.10 cm), CD (12.77±
0.63step/min; 12.82±0.39 steps/min) and SW (8.81±1.81cm; 9.55±1.80cm) for OBG and
NWG respectively were not significantly different. Within-group comparison however
showed that the WS, SL and SLT in obese group were significantly increased while CD
and SW decreased significantly across the four time points of the study.
The 12-week weight reduction exercise programme produced significant effects in the
spatiotemporal gait parameters of the obese individuals to a level comparable to that in
normal weight individuals. It is therefore recommended that weight reduction exercise
programme should be adopted to improve spatiotemporal gait parameters of individuals
presenting with obesity related problems. | en_US |
