The Get-Up-and-Go Test

by Baxter

Transportation by Melina Meza

A while back I shared with you a study done that looked at “transfer” ability as a predictor of longevity (see From Independence to True Longevity). Today while reading “Putting Prevention into Practice,” AAFP Journal, Dec. 15th, 2012, Vol.86, #12, one of my medical journals, I came across a brief article on preventing falls in community-dwelling older adults. “Community-dwelling” means living at home, not in a care facility. As I read some of the recommendations from the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), I came across a test I had not previously heard of: the timed Get-Up-and-Go test. This turns out to be a way to assess the risk of falling by testing the ability of a person to get up out of an armchair, walk 3m (10 feet), turn, walk back, and sit down again.  It seems the average healthy adult older than 60 years can do this in an average of 10 seconds or less. As I think about in connection to the four skills of healthy aging, strength, flexibility, balance and agility, the test requires some use of all four of those skills.

By the way, if you’d like to read more about the four skills of healthy aging, we have quite a bit of material on them here on our blog, including an overview about strength called Strength and Aging, another overview about flexibility called Flexibility and Aging, yet another overview about balance called Aging and Balance, as well as an introduction to the concept of agility called Yoga for Agility.

Other than vitamin D supplementation, which the USPSTF felt to have a moderate net benefit in preventing falls, the only other proactive therapy to reduce the risk of falls that the USPSTF recommended was exercise or physical therapy regimens. They feel there is convincing evidence for these two approaches, and, as we have discussed many times before, yoga has similarities to both. So get the word out to your friends and family over 65 to start, continue or increase their exercise regimen by adding some yoga to the mix!