Longitudinal data showed that the ability to complete a 10-second leg position in the middle and end of life was associated with all-cause mortality.
People who could not maintain a leg position for 10 seconds had almost twice the risk of death for the next 7 years (HR 1.84, 95% CI 1.23-2.78, P <0.001) , after adjusting for age, sex, BMI, and comorbidities, reported Claudio Gil Araujo, MD, PhD, of Clinimex Medicina do Exercicio in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and co-author of the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Previous research has linked stopping time with a leg, a measure of postural instability, to cognitive impairment and asymptomatic cerebrovascular damage.
But overall, there is little research linking leg posture to clinical outcomes other than falls, Araujo and colleagues noted.
“The benefits of the 10-second leg position test include being simple and providing quick, safe, and objective feedback to the patient and healthcare providers about static balance,” Araujo told MedPage Today .
“It can be easily incorporated into the routine of most clinical consultations, especially in the elderly,” he added. “It is important to note that 10-second single-leg results add useful information about the risk of mortality in middle-aged men and women and beyond the usual clinical data.”
The researchers included 1,702 participants between the ages of 51 and 75 in the Clinimex Exercise cohort study, which began in 1994 to assess fitness, health, and cardiovascular risk factors.
Participants had a mean age of 61.7 years at their first review between February 2009 and December 2020, and the majority (68%) were male.
Only people with stable gait were included in the study. As part of the review, participants were asked to sit on one leg for 10 seconds without additional support.
Barefoot participants were asked to place the front of the free foot on the back of the opposite leg, keeping the arms down to the sides as they looked forward. Up to three attempts were allowed on each foot.
Overall, 20.4% of participants failed the 10-second test. The failure rate increased with age: it was 4.7% in those aged 51 to 55, 8.1% in those aged 56 to 60, 17.8% in those aged 61 to 65 years and 36.8% in those aged 66 to 65 years. to people in their 70s. More than half of those aged 71 to 75 (53.6%) were unable to complete the test.
During a mean follow-up of 7 years, 7.2% of participants died, including 4.6% of those who were able to complete the test and 17.5% of those who were unable to do so.
Adjusting only for age, the HR for all-cause mortality was 2.18 (95% CI 1.48-3.22, P <0.001). "It's quite surprising that the magnitude of the difference in HR between age-adjusted mortality and multivariate mortality was so small," Araujo said.
Those who failed the test were generally in poorer health: a higher proportion were obese or had heart disease, hypertension, or dyslipidemia. Type 2 diabetes was three times more common in this group.
The study was observational and cannot establish the cause, Araujo and his colleagues acknowledged. All participants were white Brazilians and the results may not apply to other populations. In addition, possible confounding factors, such as recent history of falls, levels of physical activity, diet, smoking, and medication use, may have influenced the results.
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Judy George covers neurology and neuroscience news for MedPage Today, writing on brain aging, Alzheimer’s, dementia, MS, rare diseases, epilepsy, autism, headaches, stroke, Parkinson’s, ALS, concussion, CTE, sleep, pain, and far more. Follow
Disclosures
This study received partial funding from the research agencies CNPq and FAPERJ.