Korean J Fam Pract. 2016; 6(2): 105-110  https://doi.org/10.21215/kjfp.2016.6.2.105
Gait Speed Cut-Off Point as a Predictor of Fall in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Three-Year Prospective Finding from Living Profiles of Elderly People Surveys in Korea
Changki Hong1, Chang Won Won1,*, Byung-Sung Kim1, Hyunrim Choi1, Sunyoung Kim1, Sung-Eun Choi2, Seongho Hong1
1Department of Family Medicine, Kyung Hee University College of Medicine;
2Department of Statistics, College of Natural Sciences, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea
Chang Won Won
Tel: +82-2-958-8700, Fax: +82-2-958-8699
E-mail: chunwon62@naver.com
Received: March 10, 2016; Accepted: March 19, 2016; Published online: April 20, 2016.
© The Korean Academy of Family Medicine. All rights reserved.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background: Gait speed has been reported as a powerful predictor of adverse outcomes in the elderly. Falls in older people are considered significant because they are directly related to quality of life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between gait speed and falls, and to determine a gait speed cut-off point for identifying elevated risk for falls in elderly Koreans.
Methods: Data were gathered from the 2008 and 2011 Living Profiles of Older People Surveys that included 8,009 community-dwelling Korean men and women aged 65 years or older. Gait speed data were extracted from the 2008 survey, and falls data were extracted from the 2008 and 2011 surveys. A receiver operating characteristic curve was plotted, and different gait speed cut-offs were analyzed for sensitivity and specificity to determine a cut-off point for better prediction of subsequent falls.
Results: Of all subjects enrolled in the study, 22.2% (1,780 of 8,009) reported falls during the follow-up period. The cut-off point for gait speed was determined to be 0.7 m/s. After adjusting for age and sex, a slower gait speed (<0.7 m/s) was found to be associated with increased risk for falls. However, in the fully adjusted model, this association was not statistically significant.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that a gait speed slower than 0.7 m/s (after adjusting for age and sex) is a reliable predictor of falls in communitydwelling elderly Koreans.
Keywords: Gait Speed; Cut-Off Point; Falls; Aging; Aged; Korean
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