Laboratory for Gait and Neurodynamics, Movement Disorders Unit, Department of Neurology, Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Physiol Meas. 2011 Dec;32(12):2003-18. doi: 10.1088/0967-3334/32/12/009. Epub 2011 Nov 17.
The Timed Up and Go (TUG) test is a widely used measure of mobility and fall risk among older adults that is typically scored using a stopwatch. We tested the hypothesis that a body-fixed accelerometer can enhance the ability of the TUG to identify community-living older adults with a relatively high fall risk of unknown origin. Twenty-three community-living elderly fallers (76.0 ± 3.9 years) and 18 healthy controls (68.3 ± 9.1 years) performed the TUG while wearing a 3D-accelerometer on the lower back. Acceleration-derived parameters included Sit-to-Stand and Stand-to-Sit times, amplitude range (Range), and slopes (Jerk). Average step duration, number of steps, average step length, gait speed, acceleration-median, and standard-deviation were also calculated. While the stopwatch-based TUG duration was not significantly different between the groups, acceleration-derived TUG duration was significantly higher (p = 0.007) among the fallers. Fallers generally exhibited lower Range and Jerk (p < 0.01). While TUG stopwatch duration successfully identified 63% of the subjects, an accelerometer-derived three-measure-combination correctly classified 87% of the subjects. Accelerometer-derived measures were generally not correlated with TUG duration. These findings demonstrate that fallers have difficulty with specific TUG aspects that can be quantified using an accelerometer. Without compromising simplicity of testing, an accelerometer can apparently be combined with TUG duration to provide complementary, objective measures that allow for a more complete, sensitive TUG-based fall risk assessment.
“计时起立行走（TUG）测试”是一种广泛应用于评估老年人移动能力和跌倒风险的测试方法，通常使用秒表进行评分。我们假设身体固定加速度计可以增强 TUG 测试识别具有未知来源的高跌倒风险的社区居住老年人的能力。23 名社区居住的老年跌倒者（76.0 ± 3.9 岁）和 18 名健康对照者（68.3 ± 9.1 岁）在佩戴腰部 3D 加速度计的情况下进行 TUG 测试。加速度计衍生参数包括从坐到站和从站到站的时间、幅度范围（Range）和斜率（Jerk）。还计算了平均步幅持续时间、步数、平均步长、步速、加速度中位数和标准差。虽然基于秒表的 TUG 持续时间在两组之间没有显著差异，但跌倒者的加速度计衍生 TUG 持续时间明显更高（p = 0.007）。跌倒者通常表现出较低的 Range 和 Jerk（p < 0.01）。虽然 TUG 秒表持续时间成功识别了 63%的受试者，但加速度计衍生的三指标组合正确分类了 87%的受试者。加速度计衍生的测量值通常与 TUG 持续时间不相关。这些发现表明，跌倒者在 TUG 测试的某些方面存在困难，这些方面可以使用加速度计进行量化。在不影响测试简单性的情况下，加速度计显然可以与 TUG 持续时间相结合，提供补充的客观测量值，从而实现更完整、敏感的基于 TUG 的跌倒风险评估。
