Functional limitation pathways and transitions in community-dwelling older persons

The focus of this article is to determine the probability of making transitions through various ADL limitation levels, controlling for gender, age, and baseline ADL level, and using death as a competing outcome. We use the four waves of the Longitudinal Study of Aging and categorical data techniques to model the probability of these transitions. We find much heterogeneity among the transitions, with significant age and functional limitation effects. We also find that death and functional limitations are not necessarily highly linked.