P 042 - Gait complexity quantified using inertial measurement units in children with cerebral palsy.

Children with cerebral palsy (CP) have gait impairments, and their gait is affected by concurrent tasks. We used inertial measurement units (IMU) to quantify CP-related gait complexity alterations, and identify effects of dual tasks on gait variability from 12 children with CP and 23 typically developed (TD) controls. The data were collected for normal and dual-tasks (motor; carrying a tray, cognitive; word naming) during walking. Step duration and adjusted multiscale entropy (MSE) index were computed. In overall, children with CP had shorter step duration and greater gait complexity than TD. Gait complexity was higher in vertical direction during the cognitive than normal and motor tasks in children with CP. In TD, the gait complexity was not significantly affected by dual-tasking, although, step duration was longer for the cognitive than normal and motor tasks in both groups. As expected, gait kinematics and complexity differed between single- and dual-tasking in children with CP. The present results indicate that IMUs may provide a low-cost tool to quantify gait complexity.