On the application of entropic half-life and statistical persistence decay for quantification of time dependency in human gait

Entropic half-life (ENT½) and statistical persistence decay (SPD) was recently introduced as measures of time dependency in stride time intervals during walking. The present study investigated the effect of data length on ENT½ and SPD and additionally applied these measures to stride length and stride speed intervals. First, stride times were collected from subjects during one hour of treadmill walking. ENT½ and SPD were calculated from a range of stride numbers between 250 and 2500. Secondly, stride times, stride lengths and stride speeds were collected from subjects during 16 min of treadmill walking. ENT½ and SPD were calculated from the stride times, stride lengths and stride speeds. The ENT½ values reached a plateau between 1000 and 2500 strides whereas the SPD increased linearly with the number of included strides. This suggests that ENT½ can be compared if 1000 strides or more are included, but only SPD obtained from same number of strides should be compared. The ENT½ and SPD of the stride times were significantly longer compared to that of the stride lengths and stride speeds. This indicates that the time dependency is greater in the motor control of stride time compared to that of stride lengths and stride speeds.