Walking Faster May Help Reverse Frailty

Molly Cranna for TIMEFrailty is more than just slowing down a little with age. It’s a syndrome recognized by medical professionals as a major risk factor for a sudden worsening in health—people who score high on measures of frailty are more likely to develop complications after routine surgeries and to decline swiftly after infections or falls. Signs of frailty include a slow walking speed and taking a while to perform what’s called a “timed up-and-go test,” where someone gets up from a chair, walks a few paces, then heads back to sit down. (If this takes more than about 13 seconds, that’s a possible marker of frailty). Keeping active in older age pays dividends Encouraging older people to take it slowly might sound like reasonable advice, says Margaret Danilovich, a physical therapist and instructor at Northwestern University and an author of the new paper. "People tend to assume, ‘Someone is frail. We shouldn't have them do too much,’” she says. But, she says, that’s a miscalculation, and older folks are capable of more than they might think.In the current study, she and her colleagues set up exercise groups in 14 retirement homes. Research assistants assessed people’s frailty be...