OBJECTIVE: To classify hospitalized older patients with slow gait speed and test the hypothesis that slow gait speed or dismobility is associated with increased mortality-risk.
DESIGN: Prospective study SETTING: Acute care geriatric hospital unit. PARTICIPANTS: Older patients (N=289) admitted to a geriatric hospital unit. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Two-year survival determined by medical record review and a search of the National Death Index.
RESULTS: The majority of older patients were female (61.6%) and non-Hispanic white (72.3%). Two-hundred and thirteen older patients (73.7%) had gait speeds at or below 0.6 m/s and were classified with dismobility; 17% (49/289) of the sample died over the two-year follow-up. All but five deaths occurred in older patients with dismobility. Older patients with dismobility were more than two-and-half times as likely to die than those with gait speeds faster than 0.60 m/s (HR 2.60; 95% CI 1.01-6.77), after adjusting for age, sex, race/ethnicity, and comorbidity.
CONCLUSIONS: A simple and quick screen for gait speed was evaluated in this study of hospitalized older patients. A clinical classification of dismobility could provide the inpatient healthcare team with meaningful information about the older patients' underlying health condition(s) and future prognosis, and provides an opportunity to discuss and implement treatment options with the patient and his or her family.