行走速度将帮助临床医生预计老年患者的生存时间

USA Today (1/5, Fontana)报道：皮特斯堡大学的一项研究成果提示“行走速度”可能决定了老年人生存的时间和质量。Stephanie Studenski 是这项研究的领导者，他说“这项发现向医生们提供了一种廉价、安全、简单的方法来评估健康问题，很多情况下这些问题导致了意图改善福利，避免残疾和保持老年人独立性的医疗措施。” Evan Hadley是国家衰老研究所老年医学副主任，他表达了类似看法：“我认为这是一个非常有用的工具，一些内科医生已经在使用它。”

CNN（1/4, Landau）“图表”博客报道：研究者们是从分析9个不同研究的数据开始的，观察对象是近35000名65岁以上成人。在多种因素当中，研究者们最终注意到，对于一个70岁的男性，行走速度3mi/hr 和3.5 mi/hr之间的差距意味着平均4年的寿命，对于女性则意味着6-7年。依照这篇发表在JAMA上的论文所述，一个以2.5mi/hr的速度行走的70岁男性，将比以1mi/hr行走的男性平均多活8年之久，对于女性，则大约是10年。

然而在该文社论里面，罗马生物医学大学的Matteo Cesari认为“在医生们常规地运用行走速度作为评估寿命的手段之前，更多的研究是必要的。” （华盛顿邮报 (1/5, Stein)“体检”博客）

文献来源：Stephanie Studenski, Subashan Perera, Kushang Patel, et al. Gait Speed and Survival in Older Adults. JAMA.  2011;305(1):50-58

Walking speed may help clinicians predict how long their older patients will live.

USA Today (1/5, Fontana) reports that research coming out of the University of Pittsburg indicates that “walking speed” may determine how long and how well older people will live. “The findings can provide doctors with an inexpensive, safe and simple way of measuring performance that can help identify health problems,” says lead researcher Stephanie Studenski, “and in many cases lead to treatments that can improve well-being, ward off disabilities and help the elderly maintain independence.” Similarly, Evan Hadley, “associate director of geriatrics at the National Institute on Aging,” said, “I think it’s a very useful tool, and some physicians already use it.”

The study authors began their work by analyzing “data from nine different studies, collectively looking at nearly 35,000 adults aged 65 and older,” the CNN (1/4, Landau) “The Chart” blog reported. Among other things, they eventually noted that “for a 70-year-old man, the difference between walking 3 mi/hr and 3.5 mi/hr was four years of life on average; for a woman, it’s six to seven years.” According to the paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a “70-year-old man who walks at 2.5 mi/hr would expected to live an average of eight years longer than if he walks at 1 mi/hr; for a woman, that difference is about 10 years.”

But in an “accompanying the study, Matteo Cesari of the Universita Campus BioMedico in Rome” wrote that “much more research is needed before doctors routinely start measuring how fast people walk to get an idea of how long they may live,” the Washington Post (1/5, Stein) “The Checkup” blog points out.