Gait speed predicts mortality, disability, and falls better than most blood tests — and you can measure it in 60 seconds with a phone and a hallway. Here are the open resources to start: get your number, see the evidence, learn the protocol, and find the codes that pay for monitoring it.
Time a walk over a known distance at your usual, comfortable pace. You'll get your speed in m/s, your clinical risk band, and an estimated gait age — the age your walking speed is typical for. Nothing is stored. Share the result and the trend becomes the thing worth tracking.
Tip: for the 4-meter test, allow a 1–2 m run-up and time only the middle 4 m. Gait age is an estimate from a smoothed reference curve of published population norms (Bohannon 1997; Bohannon & Williams Andrews 2011) — a relatable translation, not a clinical diagnosis. The risk band is the part clinicians act on.
Comfortable (self-selected) gait-speed thresholds from the clinical literature. Bands vary by age, population, and protocol — use as a guide, not a diagnosis. Each card links to its source.
It is cheap, quantitative, modifiable, and predictive — the four properties of a true vital sign. The primary sources, in plain links.
Studenski et al., JAMA 2011 — pooled 9 cohorts, 34,485 adults. Each 0.1 m/s increment predicted ~12% lower mortality, rivaling age and sex.
Read the study →Fritz & Lusardi's white paper — the origin of the framing, with the clinical rationale for routine measurement and interpretation bands.
Read the white paper →MOBILIZE Boston — both slow (<0.6 m/s) and fast (≥1.3 m/s) walkers fall more than the 1.0–1.3 m/s middle. Speed alone isn't "more is better."
Read the analysis →Bohannon's classic norms for comfortable and maximum walking speed across adults aged 20–79 — the backbone of the gait-age estimate above.
Read the reference →Both are validated, equipment-light, and reproducible. Use the same one each visit so trends are comparable.
Continuous gait monitoring qualifies under CMS Remote Therapeutic Monitoring. Documentation generates under your own NPI — SurgeonValue handles the coding.
| Code | Description | ~Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 98975 | RTM setup & patient education (one-time) | $19.22 |
| 98977 | Device supply, musculoskeletal, per 30 days | $53.40 |
| 98980 | Treatment management, first 20 min | $50.18 |
| 98981 | Treatment management, each add'l 20 min | $40.33 |
Illustrative national amounts; actual payment varies by locality and year. RTM and RPM are mutually exclusive for the same patient/period.
One reading is a data point; the trajectory is the signal. These plug gait measurement into real workflows — free camera capture, clinical sensors, fall triage, and recovery tracking.
Computer-vision gait from any phone: speed, cadence, symmetry, stride. Zero hardware to start.
jointcoach.com →A partner insole adds continuous pressure and motion for post-surgical recovery and high-risk feet — the billable clinical tier.
See the spec →Turns a gait score into patient-facing fall-prevention education and caregiver alerts at threshold.
fallrisks.com →When the score crosses a line, a worker-owned caregiver network acts on it before a fall happens.
co-op.care →Drop the free interpreter into any clinic, PT, or longevity site with one line. It carries a quiet "powered by MotionSole" and links visitors back to the full tool — so the 6th vital sign spreads from every page that adopts it.
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