Establishing Normative Values for Performance-Based Tests in Older Thai Adults: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Objective: To determine normative values and identify contributing factors for physical performance tests in older, Thai, community-dwelling adults.

Design: Nationwide cross-sectional study.

Setting: Thai older community-dwelling adults.

Participants: Thai older community-dwelling adults aged ≥60 years who had no major health problems (N=1430) between March 2021 and August 2022.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main outcome measures: Normative values for the timed Up and Go (TUG) test, gait speed test, and 5-times sit-to-stand (5TSTS) test were determined for sex and age groups. Multivariable quantile regression analysis was employed to evaluate the participants, considering factors that may influence physical performance, such as height, and Charlson comorbidity index (CCI).

Results: The study included 1430 eligible participants. Their mean age was 68.4±5.8 years, and 58.5% were women. Men demonstrated superior physical performance in the medians (p50) of the TUG (10.0 s vs 11.0 s), gait speed (0.98 m/s vs 0.91 m/s), and 5TSTS (14.0 s vs 16.1 s) tests compared with women. These differences were consistently observed across age groups. Moreover, age, sex, and height were significantly associated with poor physical performance.

Conclusion: This study observed variations in the normative values of TUG, gait speed, and 5TSTS tests among different age groups of older, Thai, community-dwelling adults. Additionally, our findings identified age, sex, and height as significant contributing factors to physical performance in this population.

Keywords: 5TSTS; Gait speed; Older adults; Physical performance; Rehabilitation; TUG.