Calculation of the speed of walking of individuals with transfemoral amputation fitted with bone-anchored prosthesis

Typically, the walking ability of individuals with a transfemoral amputation (TFA) can be represented by the speed of walking (SofW) obtained in experimental settings. Recent developments in portable kinetic systems allow assessing the level of activity of TFA during actual daily living outside the confined space of a gait lab. Unfortunately, only minimal spatio-temporal characteristics could be extracted from the kinetic data including the cadence and the duration on gait cycles. Therefore, there is a need for a way to use some of these characteristics to assess the instantaneous speed of walking during daily living. The purpose of the study was to compare several methods to determine SofW using minimal spatial gait characteristics.