Scientists have linked walking speed with mild cognitive impairment

With age, changes in the body's functioning can affect not only physical endurance, but also a person's ability to perform habitual movements. Researchers have found that walking speed is associated with the state of cognitive functions, even taking into account physical fragility. About why the pace of normal walking can reflect changes in brain function — in the material "Izvestia".

Cognitive impairments have been linked to walking speed

The study was published in the scientific journal BMC Geriatrics. Scientists from Fujita University in Japan studied the data of 421 people over the age of 60. There were 213 women among the participants, with an average age of about 73 years.

The researchers simultaneously assessed physical frailty, mild cognitive impairment, and walking speed. This approach allowed us to check whether the relationship between the cognitive state and the pace of movement remains after taking into account the physical condition.

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The participants passed the test at normal and maximum speed

To assess walking, the volunteers walked a distance of 10 m. At first, they moved at a comfortable speed, and then they tried to complete the route as quickly as possible. When calculating the indicator, the researchers took into account the transit time of the central 6 m. The first and last 2 m were not included in the measurement, as they were required for acceleration and deceleration.

Physical frailty was determined using a special questionnaire that takes into account different aspects of the health status and independence of an elderly person. Depending on the results, the participants were divided into six groups: with or without fragility, with or without an intermediate state between normal and fragility, and with or without mild cognitive impairment.

Slow walking remained linked to cognitive impairment

The analysis showed that both physical frailty and mild cognitive impairment were independently associated with walking speed. At the same time, the association of mild cognitive impairment with slower movement persisted even after taking into account the physical condition.

The result turned out to be the same for both test modes — both with comfortable and with the fastest possible walking. After additional consideration of age, gender, and body mass index, cognitive status still had an independent effect on movement speed. However, the researchers found no significant interaction between fragility and mild cognitive impairment. In other words, the data obtained do not indicate that the combination of these conditions creates an additional effect that enhances the decrease in walking speed.

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It's not just the physical condition that affects the pace of movement.

The authors note that walking is not an exclusively physical activity. To maintain movement, a person also needs cognitive functions, including attention and executive abilities.

At the same time, the study does not allow to establish a cause-and-effect relationship. The work was transverse, so it is impossible to determine from its results whether cognitive decline leads to a slowdown in walking or whether changes in movement speed and cognitive state develop in parallel.

Regular walking is considered as an additional indicator

Researchers believe that monitoring walking speed may in the future expand the possibilities of detecting cognitive changes in the elderly. They call the assessment of movements a particularly promising area, not only in testing conditions, but also in everyday life.

In the future, wearable devices capable of constantly recording walking parameters may be used for this purpose. However, the authors emphasize that additional research is still needed to understand how accurately such data make it possible to distinguish between physical and cognitive impairments.

In addition, the participants in the current study lived in cities and continued to work, and the study itself was conducted in controlled conditions. Therefore, the results cannot be automatically distributed to all elderly people, or the laboratory test results can be considered a complete reflection of everyday walking.