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Physical activity and successful aging
10th International EGREPA Conference

European Group for Research into Elderly and Physical Activity

14.09. - 16.09.2006 in Köln

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Assessment of physical activity and function in ederly people

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  • corresponding author M. Hopman-Rock - Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO, Delft, The Netherlands
  • K. Frändin - TNO-VU University Medical Center, The Netherlands
  • A. Ruetten - University of Erlangen, Germany

Physical activity and successful aging. Xth International EGREPA Conference. Cologne, 14.-16.09.2006. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2006. Doc06pasa031

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/pasa2006/06pasa031.shtml

Published: December 18, 2006

© 2006 Hopman-Rock et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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For the prevention of unnecessary functional decline and for the preservation of abilities in old age, physical activity and adequate loading of the body is crucial. In order to build up individually tailored training programs and give the right advice regarding physical activity level the therapist needs to have a broad knowledge of each person’s physical performance and activity habits.

For this, valid and reliable instruments are needed. In the literature, a great number of instruments have been described, both concerning level and pattern of physical activity and concerning different aspects of function. The problem is that elderly people belong to an extremely heterogeneous group where one individual of 85 years can be in very good shape and i.e. go skiing in the mountains, while his peer suffers from a great number of diseases and is practically confined to bed.

So, the challenge is to find the most appropriate instruments for the different levels of function and physical activity. Regarding function, global measures of ADL (Activities of Daily Living) are common, and there are many different scales to choose between. When focusing on different aspects of function, i.e. muscle strength, balance, walking ability, the tests can be divided into functional and instrumental tests.

Within the EUNAAPA project one of the work packages will focus on assessments for elderly people, both regarding function and physical activity.