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Updated: Jun 17, 2026
Clinical Assessment of Spatiotemporal Gait Parameters in Patients and Older Adults
Published on: November 7, 2014
Gait speed according to cognitive status in older adults: a cross-sectional study in a resource-limited country
Rodrigo Ricardo Pérez Silva Mercado1, Edson J Ascencio1,2, Claudia L Vidal-Cuellar3
1School of Medicine 'Alberto Hurtado', Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru.
Objective:
We aimed to investigate the association between gait speed and cognitive status in outpatient older adults from a resource-limited setting in Peru.
Methods:
We performed a cross-sectional study including older adults aged ≥60 years attending a geriatrics outpatient clinic between July 2017 and February 2020. Gait speed was measured over a 10-meters distance without considering the first and last meter traveled. Cognitive status was assessed through the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ) and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). We used a multivariate binomial logistic regression to conduct both an epidemiological and fully adjusted models.
Results:
We included 519 older adults (mean age: 75 years; IQR = 10), of whom 95 (18.3%) and 151 (31.5%) were cognitively impaired according to the SPMSQ and MMSE, respectively. Gait speed was slower among patients with poorer cognitive status as assessed by both tools (p < 0.001). Malnutrition (PR: 1.74; CI: 1.45-2.08) and functional dependency (PR: 4.35; CI: 2.68-7.08) were associated with a greater prevalence of cognitive impairment according to the SPMSQ, whereas a faster gait speed (PR: 0.27, CI: 0.14-0.52) and longer years of education (PR: 0.83, CI: 0.77-0.88) were associated with a less prevalence.
Conclusions:
Slower gait speed was associated with poorer cognitive status in outpatient older adults. Gait speed may be a complementary tool in the cognitive assessment of older adults from resource-limited settings.
