Turning speed as a more responsive metric of age-related decline in mobility: A comparative study with gait speed

Background: Navigating your environment requires both straight-line gait as well as turning. Gait speed normative values are well established and utilized in determining a person's functional status, however, it has limitations. This study sought to examine whether turning speed declines with age and how it compared to gait speed age-related decline. Methods: A secondary analysis was performed on 275 community dwelling adults between the ages of 18–88 that performed a timed walking test with an inertial measurement unit on their lumbar spine. Turning speed and walking speed were extracted for each participant. A series of mixed models were compared, and Akaike's Information Criterion was used to determine the best fit model between age and turning speed and age and gait speed. Findings: Turning speed and gait speed normative values were reported for each age decade. A linear model with a random intercept of “Condition” was used to assess the relationship between age and turning speed. The results indicated a significant negative relationship between age and turning speed (B = -0.66, p < 0.001). A spline-fit model determined a significant negative relationship between age and gait speed after the age of 65 (B = -0.0097, p = 0.002). The effect of age on gait speed before age 65 was not significant. Interpretation: Turning speed significantly declines with age in a linear fashion while gait speed begins to decline after age 65. Turning speed may be more responsive to age than gait speed. More research is needed to determine if the decline in turning speed with age is associated with a decline in function.