Easy to Perform Physical Performance Tests to Identify COPD Patients with Low Physical Activity in Clinical Practice

The study investigates which physical performance or muscle function/mass tests significantly correlate with objectively measured physical activity (PA) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and could potentially serve to identify physically inactive COPD patients in routine clinical practice.

A cross-sectional, observational study was conducted in outpatients with moderate to very severe COPD. PA was measured during one week with the StepWatch Activity Monitor^®, an ankle-worn accelerometer, and expressed in steps per day. Physical fitness and peripheral muscle function/mass were evaluated by the 4-meter gait speed (4MGS) test, the 6-minute walk distance (6MWD), the 30-second chair stand test (30sCST), the timed up and go test (TUGT), handgrip strength, arm muscle area, calf circumference, the fat-free mass index (FFMI), and ultrasound measurement of the quadriceps muscle. Spearman's rank correlation analysis and ROC analysis were performed.

The study population (N=111, 69% men, mean age 68 years) walked a mean of 8059 steps/day. The daily step count strongly correlated with the 6MWD (rho=0.684, p<0.001) and moderately with the 4MGS (rho=0.464, p<0.001), the TUGT (rho= -0.463, p<0.001), and the 30sCST (rho=0.402, p<0.001). The correlation with the FFMI was weak (rho=0.210, p=0.027), while the other parameters did not significantly correlate with the daily step count. The 6MWD had the best discriminative power to identify patients with very low PA defined as <5000 steps/day (AUC=0.802 [95% CI: 0.720-0.884], p<0.001), followed by the TUGT, the 4MGS, and the 30sCST.

The 6MWD, the 4MGS, the TUGT, and the 30sCST are easy to perform in any clinical setting and may be used by clinicians in the screening of physically inactive COPD patients.