Changes in physical performance among high-functioning older adults: a 6-year follow-up study

Purposes of the study were (1) to investigate changes in physical performance during 6 years follow-up among high-functioning older adults and (2) to describe the selection of study sample with reference to measured performance. Subjects (n=1,133) born during 1917-1941 participated in the battery of health-related fitness (HRF) tests (6.1-m walk, stair climbing, backwards walk, trunk side-bending, dynamic back extension, 1-km walk and body mass index) in 1996. Six hundred and six subjects were retested in 2002. In general, poorer fitness in the baseline assessment predicted non-participation in retesting as well as test exclusions and interruptions in retesting. The 6-year changes in the HRF showed a linear trend (P<0.01) according to age group: performance of older groups deteriorated on average more than the performance of younger groups. In most of the tests, gender was statistically significantly (P<0.05) associated with the changes in performance. The mean performance of the women deteriorated in all tests during the follow-up, while the mean performance of the men deteriorated only in the trunk side-bending, 6.1-m walk and 1-km walk tests. It can be concluded that among the subjects who participated in the follow-up testing, older age and being a woman increased deterioration in several components of HRF. Considering the selection of the subjects, the deteriorations identified are very likely underestimations of real fitness changes among this sample.