Walking Speed and Survival Connected

By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Published: January 04, 2011 Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Video Source: JAMA Walking speed -- an indicator of vitality -- may help clinicians predict how long their older patients will live, a meta-analysis showed. In a pooled analysis of nine cohort studies, each 1-m/s increase in gait speed was associated with a 12% relative reduction in the risk of death during follow-up (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.87 to 0.90), according to Stephanie Studenski, MD, MPH, of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues. The risk reduction was consistent across most subgroups -- except for functional status -- with hazard ratios ranging from 0.81 to 0.92 (P<0.002 for all), the researchers reported in the Jan. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. If use of gait speed -- a simple indicator of physical function -- as a predictor of survival is implemented in clinical practice, it may help clinicians individualize the treatment of older patients, according to Studenski and her colleagues./.../