Functional fitness, disease and independence in community-dwelling older adults in western Wisconsin

Older adults are at higher risk for developing chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, or arthritis. Despite the aging process, maintaining independence is a major goal for older adults. Functional fitness has been found to be predictive of one's ability to perform necessary everyday activities needed to maintain independence. We conducted functional fitness assessments with community-dwelling older adults and correlated the findings to other participant characteristics.

Participants completed 6 functional fitness tests and a health-screening questionnaire. Test performance was compared across demographic, behavioral, chronic illness, and activities of daily living categories.

One hundred sixty nine adults over age 50 completed the tests. Thirty-seven percent performed at or above the population norm on all tests. There was a significant positive correlation between test performance and activities of daily living (r=0.3520, P=0.0001). In multivariate analysis, the best model to predict test performance included education, self-rated health, obesity, diabetes, and activities of daily living.

An objective test, such as the one reported here, may be helpful in predicting loss of independence. However, health care providers, using a few questions based on this study's key findings, may be able to screen for patients with poor functional status that are at risk of losing independence.