What did Guralnik et al. (1994) find?

Key numbers

Who was studied and how function was tested

The study included more than 5,000 people aged 71 and older, recruited from three communities.

The battery covered balance, gait, strength and endurance. Balance was the ability to stand with the feet together side by side, in semi-tandem and in tandem. Gait was the time to walk 8 feet. Lower-body strength and endurance was the time to rise from a chair and sit back down 5 times. Performance on each test was widely spread, and a summary scale was made by adding up each person's category on each test.

What the study found

Each test, and the summary scale, was strongly associated with how much disability people reported. Even among people with identical self-reported profiles, performance differed systematically by age and by sex. The authors present evidence that the tests provide information not available from self-report items.

In analyses that included both, self-report items and performance tests were each independent predictors of short-term mortality and of nursing home admission. Among people at the high end of function, who reported almost no disability, performance scores still separated a gradient of risk for both outcomes. The authors conclude that performance and self-report measures may complement each other.

What this study does not show

These are associations in adults aged 71 and older, not evidence that poor performance causes death or admission to a nursing home. The paper reports both individual tests and the summary scale, so a summary result should not be read as a result for chair rises alone. Five rises from a chair is also a different task from the floor-based Sitting-Rising Test, and this study does not validate any Systematic test.

The evidence

Each cited source is labeled according to how it supports the particular claim on this page. Direct test evidence, underlying-capacity findings and population reference values are distinguished from Systematic-defined protocols and standards. Historical development notes are retained internally rather than presented as public evidence. A study of an underlying capacity is never presented as validation of the Systematic test itself.

• Underlying-capacity evidence New source

  Guralnik et al. (1994). A short physical performance battery assessing lower extremity function: association with self-reported disability and prediction of mortality and nursing home admission. Journal of gerontology.

  What it found. In more than 5,000 people aged 71 and older from three communities, each test and the summary scale were strongly associated with self-reported disability, and both self-report and performance independently predicted short-term mortality and nursing home admission.

  What it does not show. It does not show cause, it does not validate a Systematic test, and five chair rises are not the same task as the floor-based Sitting-Rising Test.

  PubMed 8126356