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Cognitive Therapy and Research

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Open Access 01-12-2021 | Affective Disorder | Original Article

Gait Patterns and Mood in Everyday Life: A Comparison Between Depressed Patients and Non-depressed Controls

Authors: Dirk Adolph, Wolfgang Tschacher, Helen Niemeyer, Johannes Michalak

Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research | Issue 6/2021

Abstract

Background

Previous laboratory findings suggest deviant gait characteristics in depressed individuals (i.e., reduced walking speed and vertical up-and-down movements, larger lateral swaying movements, slumped posture). However, since most studies to date assessed gait in the laboratory, it is largely an open question whether this association also holds in more naturalistic, everyday life settings. Thus, within the current study we (1) aimed at replicating these results in an everyday life and (2) investigated whether gait characteristics could predict change in current mood.

Methods

We recruited a sample of patients (n = 35) suffering from major depressive disorder and a sample of age and gender matched non-depressed controls (n = 36). During a 2-day assessment we continuously recorded gait patterns, general movement intensity and repetitively assessed the participant’s current mood.

Results

We replicated previous laboratory results and found that patients as compared to non-depressed controls showed reduced walking speed and reduced vertical up-and-down movements, as well as a slumped posture during everyday life episodes of walking. Moreover, independent of clinical diagnoses, higher walking speed, and more vertical up-and-down movements significantly predicted more subsequent positive mood, while changes in mood did not predict subsequent changes in gait patterns.

Conclusion

In sum, our results support expectations that embodiment (i.e., the relationship between bodily expression of emotion and emotion processing itself) in depression is also observable in naturalistic settings, and that depression is bodily manifested in the way people walk. The data further suggest that motor displays affect mood in everyday life.

Reduced vertical gait dynamic is supposed to be one key feature of depressed gait, as found in previous research (Michalk et al. 2009). This is in line with the finding that depressed patients tend to walk with a lifting motion of their legs, whereas normal control subjects propel themselves forward with a more pronounced vertical gait (Sloman et al. 1982). Thus, the enhanced vertical dynamic feature seen in non-depressed individuals stems from a generally more dynamic gait pattern.

All hierarchical models have also been calculated using person-mean centered effects. We obtained comparable results: walking speed and vertical up-and-down movements predicted positive mood, all other parameters showed no significant associations.

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Title: Gait Patterns and Mood in Everyday Life: A Comparison Between Depressed Patients and Non-depressed Controls
Authors: Dirk Adolph
Wolfgang Tschacher
Helen Niemeyer
Johannes Michalak
Publication date: 01-12-2021
Publisher: Springer US
Keywords: Affective Disorder
Affective Disorder
Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research / Issue 6/2021
Print ISSN: 0147-5916
Electronic ISSN: 1573-2819
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-021-10215-7

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Gait Patterns and Mood in Everyday Life: A Comparison Between Depressed Patients and Non-depressed Controls

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on sleep in brain health

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

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