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Affiliation
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Department of Physical Therapy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. |
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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: The Figure-of-8-Walk test (F8WT) is a performance measure of the motor skill of walking. Unlike walking speed over a straight path, it captures curved path walking, which is essential to real-world activity, but meaningful cut-points have yet to be developed for the F8WT.
METHODS: A secondary analysis of 421 community-dwelling older adults (mean age 80.7±7.8), who participated in a community-based exercise clinical trial, was performed. Area under receiver operating characteristic curves (AUROCC) were calculated using baseline data, with F8WT performance discriminating different self-reported global mobility and balance dichotomies. Cut-points for the F8WT were chosen to optimize sensitivity and specificity. For validation, F8WT cut-points were applied to post-intervention F8WT data. Participants were called monthly for 12 months after intervention completion to record self-reported incident falls, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations; risks of the outcomes were compared between those who performed well and poorly on the F8WT.
RESULTS: F8WT performance times of ≤9.09s and ≤9.27s can discriminate those with excellent (sensitivity=0.647; specificity=0.654) and excellent/very good global mobility (sensitivity=0.649; specificity=0.648), respectively. A total number of steps ≤17 on the F8WT can discriminate those with excellent/very good/good global balance (sensitivity=0.646; specificity=0.608). Compared to those who performed poorly, those who performed well had a lower incidence of negative outcomes: F8WT time ≤9.09s = 46-59% lower; F8WT time ≤9.27s = 46-56% lower; F8WT steps ≤17 = 44-50% lower.
CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians may consider these preliminary cut-points to aid in their clinical decision-making, but further study is needed for definitive recommendations.
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Language: en |