Stephan Yannick, Sutin Angelina R, Terracciano Antonio
EA 4556 Dynamic of Human Abilities and Health Behaviors, University of Montpellier, 700, avenue du Pic Saint Loup, 34090, Montpellier, France,
Age (Dordr). 2015 Oct;37(5):86. doi: 10.1007/s11357-015-9830-9. Epub 2015 Aug 22.
Walking speed is a key vital sign in older people. Given the implications of slower gait speed, a large literature has identified health-related, behavioral, cognitive, and biological factors that moderate age-related decline in mobility. The present study aims to contribute to existing knowledge by examining whether subjective age, how old or young individuals experience themselves to be relative to their chronological age, contributes to walking speed. Participants were drawn from the 2008 and 2012 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS, N = 2970) and the 2011 and 2013 waves of the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS, N = 5423). In both the HRS and the NHATS, linear regression analysis revealed that a younger subjective age was associated with faster walking speed at baseline and with less decline over time, controlling for age, sex, education, and race. These associations were partly accounted for by depressive symptoms, disease burden, physical activity, cognition, body mass index, and smoking. Additional analysis revealed that feeling younger than one's age was associated with a reduced risk of walking slower than the frailty-related threshold of 0.6 m/s at follow-up in the HRS. The present study provides novel and consistent evidence across two large prospective studies for an association between the subjective experience of age and walking speed of older adults. Subjective age may help identify individuals at risk for mobility limitations in old age and may be a target for interventions designed to mitigate functional decline.
步行速度是老年人的一项关键生命体征。鉴于步态速度减慢的影响，大量文献已确定了与健康、行为、认知和生物学相关的因素，这些因素可缓和与年龄相关的行动能力下降。本研究旨在通过检验主观年龄（即个体相对于实际年龄感觉自己是年老还是年轻）是否对步行速度有影响，来为现有知识做出贡献。参与者来自健康与退休研究（HRS，2008年和2012年两轮，N = 2970）以及国民健康与老龄化趋势研究（NHATS，2011年和2013年两轮，N = 5423）的数据。在HRS和NHATS中，线性回归分析均显示，在控制了年龄、性别、教育程度和种族后，较年轻的主观年龄与基线时较快的步行速度以及随时间推移较小的下降幅度相关。这些关联部分可由抑郁症状、疾病负担、身体活动、认知、体重指数和吸烟来解释。进一步分析表明，在HRS随访中，感觉比实际年龄年轻与步行速度低于与虚弱相关的阈值0.6米/秒的风险降低有关。本研究通过两项大型前瞻性研究，为老年人的年龄主观体验与步行速度之间的关联提供了新颖且一致的证据。主观年龄可能有助于识别老年时行动能力受限风险较高的个体，并且可能成为旨在减轻功能衰退的干预目标。
