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Minimum performance thresholds may determine physical ability in patients with knee OA
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Patients with knee osteoarthritis who do not meet minimum performance thresholds on clinical tests of physical function may have inadequate physical ability to walk 6,000 steps or more a day, results showed.
Daniel K. White, PT, ScD, MSc, and colleagues used the five-times sit-to-stand test, walking speed and 400-meter walk test to quantify physical function in 1,925 participants (55% were women) with knee OA from the Osteoarthritis Initiative. Daily walking was quantified as average steps per day measured with an accelerometer worn for 10 hours or more per day in 1 week. Researchers calculated physical function values corresponding to high specificity to predict walking 6,000 or more steps per day to identify minimum performance thresholds for daily walking.
Results showed 54.9% of participants walked 6,000 steps or more per day. After adjustment for potential confounders, researchers noted an association between worse performance on clinical tests of physical function and taking fewer steps per day. According to results, participants were associated with walking 130 fewer steps per day for each additional 1 second it took to complete the five-times sit-to-stand test. Researchers also found an association with walking 342 fewer steps per day and 125 fewer steps per day among patients who walked 0.1 meters per second slower during the 20-meter walk test and patients who took an additional 10 seconds to complete the 400-meter walk test, respectively.
Results showed high specificity thresholds of physical function of 11.4 seconds to 14 seconds on the five-times sit-to-stand test, 1.13 meters to 1.26 meters per second for walking speed or 315 seconds to 349 seconds on the 400-meter walk test for walking 6,000 steps or more per day.
“If someone with knee osteoarthritis takes more than 12 seconds to rise from a chair five times, doctors should consider referring them to physical therapy,” White told Healio.com/Rheumatology. “That is because we found people who take more than 12 seconds are highly unlikely to have the capability to be physically active, ie, walk more than 6,000 steps per day.” – by Casey Tingle
Disclosures : The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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