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Mobility-related function in older adults: assessment with a 6-minute walk test
N D Harada1, V Chiu, A L Stewart
1Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center of the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, West Los Angeles, University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, 90073, USA.
Objective:
To determine the usefulness of the 6-minute walk test as an integrated measure of mobility in older adults.
Design:
Observational study.
Setting:
Community centers and retirement homes in the Los Angeles area.
Patients:
Eighty-six older adults without significant disease.
Interventions:
None.
Main Outcome Measures:
Assessments included the 6-minute walk, chair stands, standing balance, gait speed, body mass index, and self-reported physical functioning and general health perceptions.
Results:
One-week test-retest reliability of the 6-minute walk was .95. As hypothesized, the 6-minute walk distance was significantly greater for active than for inactive older adults (p < .0001), moderately correlated with chair stands (r = .67), standing balance (r = .52), and gait speed (r = -.73). It had a low correlation with body mass index (r = -.07). The correlation of the 6-minute walk with self-reported physical functioning was .55, and its correlation with general health perceptions was .39. Self-report and performance measures explained 69% of the variance in 6-minute walk scores.
Conclusions:
The 6-minute walk test is reliable and is valid in relation to the performance and self-reported indicators of physical functioning tested in this study. It could serve as a useful integrated measure of mobility.