Reliability and validity of the 10-Meter Walk Test (10MWT) in adolescents and young adults with Down Syndrome

Abstract

People with Down syndrome (DS) have gait deficits because motor milestones are usually reached later. Decreased gait speed or reduced stride length are some of the main deficits. The main objective of the present work was to assess the reliability of the 10-Meter Walk Test (10MWT) in adolescents and young adults with DS. The objective has been to analyze the construct validity of the 10MWT with the Timed up and go (TUG) test. A total of 33 participants with DS were included. Reliability was verified by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The agreement was analyzed by the Bland-Altman method. Finally, construct validity was evaluated through Pearson correlation coefficient. The 10MWT intra-rater and inter-rater reliability were good (ICC between 0.76 until 0.9) and excellent (ICC > 0.9), respectively. The minimal detectable change for intra-rater reliability was 0.188 m/s. Also, it has demonstrated moderate construct validity (r > 0.5) considering the TUG test. The 10MWT has shown high intra- and inter-rater reliability and validity in adolescent and adults with SD and a moderate construct validity between TUG test and 10MWT.