Daily walking speed and frailty: a significant association?

Article: Association between daily life walking speed and frailty measured by a smartphone application: a cross-sectional study

Walking speed (WS) is clinically recognized as a crucial vital sign. Associations between daily walking speed (DWS) and health outcomes have been underscored by a number of studies, which have further recognized it as an accurate predictor of dependency and mortality in elderly individuals. Despite this knowledge, very few studies have examined the link between DWS and frailty.

The aim of this study was to investigate a smartphone application’s ability to assess the association between DWS and frailty. This application measured DW parameters such as speed and step length and further conducted an in-app frailty assessment using the Kihon checklist.

Key learnings:

Compared to the prefrailty and robust groups, DWS in frail individuals was found to be distinctly slower. However, this difference was not statistically significant. Nevertheless, DW step length was found to be significantly smaller in the frailty group than in the prefrailty and robust groups. Furthermore, logistic regression analyses of the 3 models concluded that DWS measured using the smartphone application was significantly associated with frailty.

Reviewed by: Z. Beketova

Authors: Kawai H, Obuchi S, Ejiri M et al.

Published in: BMJ Open 2023