Charting the course of healthy mobility
Knowledge Mobilization Activity/Product (2023)

Using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), a team of McMaster University researchers developed age-specific performance charts to improve the identification of low physical function and mobility in mid-to-late-life older adults, allowing for early interventions to preserve mobility and function and improve quality of life.

  • The groundbreaking charts were inspired by the World Health Organization’s growth charts for children, which benchmark early childhood growth by age and sex. The research team identified that the rapid growth experienced by infants and children is analogous to the declines experienced as we age.
  • The performance charts provide an alternative to traditional “cut-offs” which do not take the expected declines in muscle strength and physical function that occur with normal aging into consideration. This results in “cut-offs” that overidentify older adults and under-identify younger adults as having low physical performance.
  • The new charts show the distribution of performance in adults aged 45-to-85 years free of mobility impairments for five tests of physical function: grip strength, gait speed, timed up and go, chair rise, and balance.

The research, published in April 2023, was awarded the Dhole-Eddlestone Memorial Prize. The award is given to annually to the most deserving medical research relating to the needs of older people, published over the last year in the scientific journal of the British Geriatrics Society (BGS), Age and Ageing.

About the Team

First author: Dr. Alexandra Mayhew, Research Associate (Academic), Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact (HEI) at McMaster University

Senior author: Dr. Parminder Raina, Professor in HEI, Scientific Director of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging, and the Lead PI of the CLSA

Links to key/related outputs, including academic and non-academic, and further reading:

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