Texas A&M Researchers Study Whether Walking Patterns Can Signal Dementia Early

Scientists at Texas A&M University are investigating whether the way a person walks could offer some of the earliest clues to dementia, a condition whose brain changes are known to begin years before symptoms become obvious.

Dr. Jenna Yentes, an associate professor in the university's Department of Kinesiology and Sport Management, said the brain undergoes physiological changes as much as two decades before patients approach a doctor with complaints such as poor memory, anxiety, difficulty handling stress or unusual irritability.

Walking, she argues, is a window into how well the body's systems are coordinating. "Walking is a presentation or manifestation of all of those systems being able to work together," she said. When gait begins to shift, it may signal that connections between those systems are no longer firing on all cylinders.

Yentes points to Parkinson's disease as a precedent. Patients with advanced Parkinson's typically display a distinctive shuffling, hunched walk, but research has documented subtler changes in their gait many years earlier. Her team is now asking whether Alzheimer's and related dementias produce a comparable early signature.

The traits under scrutiny are not the dramatic alterations seen in Parkinson's. Instead, the researchers are tracking measures such as step length, step width and cadence — the number of steps taken per minute. "There are things that you may not be noticing, but to those of us that study gait, they become very important," Yentes said.

Walking speed is a central focus. Yentes noted that reduced walking speed has been linked to numerous conditions, from pulmonary disease to peripheral artery disease, so slowness alone cannot identify dementia. The goal is to determine whether a specific pattern within the gait distinguishes Alzheimer's and related dementias from other pathologies, or whether the changes are more general.

She also studies variability — the natural, slight differences in every step a person takes. Losing that variability and moving more robotically is not a good sign, she said, but neither is excessive variability, which can indicate instability and loss of control.

Gait speed matters functionally, Yentes added. Crosswalks are timed to certain walking speeds, and a person's ability to move faster than their preferred pace when needed reflects their capacity to adapt to environmental demands. A shrinking gap between normal and maximal walking speed can leave someone unable to adjust to such stressors.

Once sufficient data is collected, Yentes hopes the findings can be shared with healthcare providers so that gait checks become as routine as monitoring vital signs. That, in turn, could open the door to earlier cognitive or physical interventions. She is candid that the disease itself may not be stoppable, but earlier detection could help delay its onset or slow its progression.

"You may not be able to stop the disease," she said. "However, can we do certain cognitive or physical interventions much earlier to maybe delay the onset of the disease? Or if we can't delay the onset, can we slow the progression?"