Question:
What is the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test, and is it a good indicator of mortality risk in older people?
Answer:
The Timed up and Go test (TUG) is defined as a timed test in which an individual must stand up from a seated position, walk 3 meters, turn around, walk back and sit down. And based on a study of older adults in Korea, yes it is a good indicator of mortality risk. The study of roughly 40,000 participants found those with an abnormal test i.e. >10s had higher mortality risk1. The study covered Korean adults all of age 66 years with 53.2% being females. Similar results have also been recorded in a number of different cohorts2.
The chart below shows the results of the study. It shows that participants who had an abnormal TUG test (>10s) had a lower probability of survival than those with a normal TUG test (<10s). In the model adjusted for sex, income, smoking, at-risk alcohol drinking and exercise frequency the hazard ratio was 1.25 for abnormal TUG results compared to those with normal TUG results.
Source: Club Vita calculations based on BMC Geriatrics, Association of timed up and go test outcomes with future incidence of cardiovascular disease and mortality in adults aged 66 years: Korean national representative longitudinal study over 5.7 years
Key takeaways:
- An abnormal TUG test (i.e. >10 seconds) is regularly associated with increased mortality risk in older people.
- As a relatively simple and unintrusive test, this is a very useful metric for medical underwriting of longevity related products.
The key questions are:
- Could modifications to lifestyle such as weight training and exercise into older years help in maintaining a normal TUG test time?
- Can the TUG test become a key indicator of frailty and health for older people?
- Why is 10s the cutoff between normality and abnormality for the test?
1TUG test data and results taken from the a study published in the journal BMC Geriatrics: Association of timed up and go test outcomes with future incidence of cardiovascular disease and mortality in adults aged 66 years: Korean national representative longitudinal study over 5.7 years
2Additional study on older adults in Peru published in the journal BMC Geriatrics: Timed up and go test predicts mortality in older adults in Peru: a population-based cohort study