Gait Speed and Survival in Older Adults

Abstract

Remaining years of life vary widely in older adults, and physicians should consider life expectancy when assessing goals of care and treatment plans.¹ However, life expectancy based on age and sex alone provides limited information because survival is also influenced by health and functional abilities.² There are currently no well-established approaches to predicting life expectancy that incorporate health and function, although several models have been developed from individual data sources.^3-5 Gait speed, also often termed walking speed, has been shown to be associated with survival among older adults in individual epidemiological cohort studies^6-12 and has been shown to reflect health and functional status.¹³ Gait speed has been recommended as a potentially useful clinical indicator of well-being among the older adults.¹⁴ The purpose of this study is to evaluate the association of gait speed with survival in older adults and to determine the degree to which gait speed explains variability in survival after accounting for age and sex.