Servicio de Geriatría, Geriatric Department, Hospital Universitario de Getafe, Ctra de Toledo Km 12.5, 28905, Getafe, Spain.
Fundación de Investigación Biomédica del Hospital Universitario de Getafe, Getafe, Spain.
Aging Clin Exp Res. 2020 Jun;32(6):1043-1048. doi: 10.1007/s40520-019-01187-6. Epub 2019 Apr 12.
Health professionals commonly use gait speed in the evaluation of functional status in older people. However, only a limited number of studies have assessed gait speed in the absence of disorders of gait, using confounding factors and exclusion criteria coming from studies conducted in younger people. Our study aims to analyse which factors are associated with gait speed in older people with normal clinical gait.
An observational cross-sectional study was conducted in 119 community-dwelling residents without relevant comorbidities (Charlson index < 2), preserved function (Barthel > 85) and normal gait by visual exploration. Exclusion criteria included suffering from any illness that could modify the characteristics of gait, terminal status or the presence of an acute medical illness in the past 3 months. We used a stepwise linear regression of several variables (sociodemographic characteristics, cognition, body composition, drugs, falls, sarcopenia, frailty and physical activity) on 6-metre gait speed.
The mean age was 78 years (range 70-96 years) and 71.4% were women. Variables that remained associated with gait speed in the multivariate final model were age (B = - 0.020, p < 0.001); gender (B = - 0.184, p < 0.001); waist-to-height ratio (B = - 0.834, p = 0.002); number of falls (B = - 0.049, p = 0.003) and the number of Fried's frailty criteria (B = - 0.064, p = 0.019).
Falls, frailty and the waist-to-height ratio modify gait speed in older people with normal gait. Studies analysing the potential effect of several factors on gait speed should consider them as confounding factors.
健康专业人员通常在评估老年人的功能状态时使用步速。然而，只有少数研究在没有步态障碍的情况下，使用来自年轻人研究的混杂因素和排除标准来评估步速。我们的研究旨在分析哪些因素与临床步态正常的老年人的步速相关。
这是一项观察性的横断面研究，纳入了 119 名无相关合并症（Charlson 指数<2）、功能保留（Barthel 评分>85）和视觉检查正常步态的社区居民。排除标准包括患有任何可能改变步态特征的疾病、终末期疾病或过去 3 个月内患有急性疾病。我们使用逐步线性回归分析了几个变量（社会人口特征、认知、身体成分、药物、跌倒、肌肉减少症、衰弱和身体活动）与 6 米步速的关系。
平均年龄为 78 岁（70-96 岁），71.4%为女性。多变量最终模型中与步速相关的变量为年龄（B=-0.020，p<0.001）；性别（B=-0.184，p<0.001）；腰高比（B=-0.834，p=0.002）；跌倒次数（B=-0.049，p=0.003）和 Fried 衰弱标准数（B=-0.064，p=0.019）。
跌倒、衰弱和腰高比会改变临床步态正常的老年人的步速。分析多种因素对步速潜在影响的研究应将这些因素视为混杂因素。
