Fitness-related factors associated with changes in walking speed in elderly women

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relation between the deterioration of walking speed and physical fitness. Sixty-two elderly women (80.4±4.0 years old) volunteered to participate as subjects. Walking speeds at normal and fast speeds on a 10 m straight course, as well as muscular strength, flexibility, agility and balance were measured. Normal and fast walking speeds decreased through aging, and mostly depended on the strength of lower extremity muscles (hip extensor, hip abductor, knee extensor and ankle plantar flexor; normal walking: r=0.596-0.666, p<0.01, fast walking: r=0.623-0.727, p<0.01). However, the distributions of walking speed to the strength of each measured muscle were divided into two phases. The weaker group of lower extremity muscle strength had much slower walking speed. The two groups, divided according to muscular strength (the sum of the T scores of the four muscular strengths of the lower extremity) showed the following differing results. In the "high" muscular strength group (n=31) the highest factor was lower extremity muscle strength, but it was the delay of nerve reaction time in the "low" muscular strength group (n=31). From these results, it was clarified that the main factor in the deterioration of walking speed in elderly women was the decline of lower extremity muscle strength. However, it was suggested that the functional decline of the nervous system would greatly affect the decrease of walking speed in elderly with weaker muscular strength.