Slow walker? You’re on a fast track to a nursing home

We all want to be like those people who seem to age well. You know — the ones who get laugh lines, not wrinkles, whose memories remain sharp as a tack, and who get stronger, healthier and more vital as the years pass.

But we also know there’s a good chance things won’t turn out so well…

Some of us will instead suffer from frailty as we age — a condition that makes it far more likely a nursing home is in our future.

And now, there may be a way to determine which group you’re in — just in time to do something about it.

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Why do we age? Researchers have an abundance of theories. One particularly strong one is that free radicals, produced by the body’s own processes and by elements in the environment, damage cells and age us before our time. But it’s possible to… MORE〉〉

The single strongest predictor of frailty

In fact, according to a team of researchers from Sao Paulo, Brazil, determining if you are at high risk of frailty could be as easy as noticing how fast you walk.

That’s because once again scientists are finding that gait speed is a highly important indicator of your health. Slow walking has been linked to everything from increased risk of COVID-19 to lower brain volume and memory problems.

Previous studies have shown it can predict whether or not a person is likely to be able to continue to perform their normal activities of daily living down the road — at least when it was combined with a number of other factors.

But now, after analyzing data from more than 3,000 over-60’s, those Brazil scientists say that gait speed alone is enough to tell you if you’re likely to be able to care for yourself in the future or if frailty is in the cards.

“Our study showed that measuring gait speed alone is sufficient for efficient prediction of loss of functional capacity in older adults. Based on our findings, we can say that slowness of gait precedes this loss by several years,” said Tiago da Silva Alexandre, principal investigator for the study.

So if you’re worried about how well you’re aging, it’s time to start paying attention to how fast you walk and work at picking your feet up a little faster.

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Staying strong and walking faster as you age

The good news though is that you have time to turn things around. The researchers found that even if you already have a slower than normal gait speed, it could be years before frailty and the loss of functional capacity set in.

In the meantime, there are ways to boost your strength and stave off frailty, including:

Sources:

Slowness of gait can predict risk of frailty in older people – EurekAlert!

A sluggish, unsteady walk might signal memory problems – Harvard Health Publishing