Abstract
Background
Frailty has become the center of attention of basic, clinical, and demographic research
because of its incidence level and the gravity of adverse outcomes with age. Moreover,
with advanced age, motor variability increases, particularly in gait. Muscle quality
and muscle power seem to be closely associated with performance on functional tests
in frail populations. Insight into the relationships among muscle power, muscle quality,
and functional capacity could improve the quality of life in this population. In this
study, the relationship between the quality of the muscle mass and muscle strength
with gait performance in a frail population was examined.
Methods
Twenty-two institutionalized frail elderly individuals (93.1 ± 3.6) participated in
this study. Muscle quality was measured by segmenting areas of high- and low-density
fibers as observed in computed tomography images. The assessed functional outcomes
were leg strength and power, velocity of gait, and kinematic gait parameters obtained
from a tri-axial inertial sensor.
Findings
Our results showed that a greater number of high-density fibers, specifically those
of the quadriceps femoris muscle, were associated with better gait performance in
terms of step time variability, regularity, and symmetry. Additionally, gait variability
was associated with muscle power. In contrast, no significant relationship was observed
between gait velocity and either muscle quality or muscle power.
Interpretation
Gait pattern disorders could be explained by a deterioration of the lower limb muscles.
It is known that an impaired gait is an important predictor of falls in older populations;
thus, the loss of muscle quality and power could underlie the impairments in motor
control and balance that lead to falls and adverse outcomes.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 11, 2015
Footnotes
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
This work was supported in part by the Spanish Department of Health and Institute Carlos III of the Government of Spain (Spanish Net on Aging and Frailty [RETICEF] under grant RD12/043/0002).
Identification
Copyright
© 2016 AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
