A monitor records the gait activity of a wearer. The monitor is constructed to determine and record the number of steps taken by a wearer during selected intervals. The monitor includes an optical transmitter receiver to permit the monitor to be optically coupled to a stand-alone computer for transmitting data therebetween. The monitor can be programmed by the stand-alone computer to change the duration of the selected time interval period. Similarly, the gait activity data stored by the monitor can be downloaded to the stand-alone computer for analyzing the data and generating selected reports.