Cong GT, Cohn MR, Villa J, Kerwin LJ, Rosen N, Fang XZ, Christos PJ, Evrony A, Chen J, Torres A, Lane JM. J. Orthop. Trauma 2015; 30(4): e132-7.
Affiliation
1Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY. 2Hospital for Special Surgery, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, New York, NY. 3State University of New York - Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY. 4Cornell University, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Ithaca, NY.
OBJECTIVES: The literature increasingly demonstrates the importance of gait speed in the frailty assessment of patients 60 years and older. Conventional gait speed measurement, however, may be contraindicated in settings such as trauma where the patient is temporarily immobilized. We devised a Walking Speed Questionnaire (WSQ) to allow assessment of pre-injury baseline gait speed, in meters per second, in a self-reported manner, to overcome the inability to directly test the patients' walking speed.
DESIGN: Four questions comprise the WSQ, and were derived using previously published questionnaires and expert opinion of six physician-researchers. SETTING: Four ambulatory clinics. PARTICIPANTS: Ambulating individuals aged 60 to 95 (mean age 73.2 ± 8.1, 86.1% female, N = 101). INTERVENTION: Participants completed the WSQ and underwent gait speed measurement for comparison. ANALYSIS: WSQ score correlation to true gait speed, receiver operating characteristics, and validation statistics were performed.
RESULTS: All four questions of the WSQ independently predicted true gait speed significantly (P<0.001). The WSQ sufficiently predicted true gait speed with r = 0.696 and ρ = 0.717.
CONCLUSION: The WSQ is an effective tool for assessing baseline walking speed in patients 60 years and older in a self-reported manner. It permits gait screening in health care environments where conventional gait speed testing is contraindicated due to temporary immobilization, and may be used to provide baseline targets for goal-oriented post-trauma care. Given its ability to capture gait speed in patients who are unable to ambulate, it may open doors for frailty research in previously unattainable populations. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Diagnostic Level II. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.