The ability to complete a 10-second stand with one leg in the middle to late life is associated with all-cause mortality, longitudinal data show.
People who could not hold a stand on one leg for 10 seconds had almost twice the risk of death over the next 7 years (HR 1.84, 95% CI 1.23-2.78, P < 0.001), after adjusting for age, gender, BMI, and comorbidities, reported Claudio Gil Araujo, MD, PhD, of Clinimex Medicina do Exercicio in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and co-authors in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Previous research has linked the straightening time of one leg, a measure of postural instability, to cognitive decline and asymptomatic cerebrovascular injury.
But overall, there are few studies linking one-legged posture to clinical results other than falls, Araujo and colleagues said.
“The benefits of the 10-second one-legged stand test include that it is simple and provides fast, safe and objective feedback to patients and healthcare providers on static balance,” Araujo told MedPage Today.
“It can easily be included in the routine of most clinical consultations, especially for the elderly,” he added. “It is important that the results of a 10-second one-legged stance add useful information on the risk of mortality in middle-aged and older men and women, beyond the usual clinical data.
The researchers included 1,702 participants aged 51 to 75 in the Clinimex Exercise cohort study, which began in 1994 to assess fitness, health and cardiovascular risk factors.
Participants had an average age of 61.7 at their first examination from February 2009 to December 2020, with the majority (68%) being male.
Only people with stable gait were included in the study. As part of the test, participants were asked to stand on one leg for 10 seconds without additional support.
Barefoot participants were asked to place the front of their free foot on the back of the opposite lower leg, keeping their arms down to the side while looking straight ahead. Up to three trials with each leg are allowed.
Overall, 20.4% of participants failed the 10-second test. The failure rate increases with age: it was 4.7% for 51- to 55-year-olds, 8.1% for 56- to 60-year-olds, 17.8% for 61- to 65-year-olds, and 36.8% for 66-year-olds. -years of 70-year-olds. More than half of those aged 71-75 (53.6%) could not complete the test.
During a 7-year follow-up, 7.2% of participants died, including 4.6% of those who completed the test and 17.5% of those who failed.
Adjusting for age alone, the HR for all-cause mortality was 2.18 (95% CI 1.48-3.22, P <0.001). "It's pretty amazing that the magnitude of the difference in HR between age-appropriate and multivariate mortality is so small," Araujo said.
Those who failed the test usually had poorer health: a higher percentage were obese or had heart disease, hypertension or dyslipidemia. Type 2 diabetes is three times more common in this group.
The study is observational and cannot determine the cause, Araujo and colleagues admit. All participants were white Brazilians and the results may not apply to other populations. In addition, potential confusing factors such as a recent history of falls, levels of physical activity, diet, smoking, and medication use may have affected the results.
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Judy George covers neurological and neurological news for MedPage Today by writing about brain aging, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, MS, rare diseases, epilepsy, autism, headache, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, concussion, CTE, sleep, pain, and others. I follow
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This study received partial funding from the research agencies CNPq and FAPERJ.
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