Mobility performance among community-dwelling older Filipinos who lived in urban and rural settings: A preliminary study.
Frances Rom Lunar, Jan Paul Marquez, Francine Kier Quianzon and 5 others
PMID 31889760WHAT IT FOUND
Urban-dwelling older Filipinos walked faster, rose from a chair faster, and walked farther in six minutes than rural-dwelling peers.
Scores varied by age and sex, but the urban-rural gap remained. This is preliminary and should not be used as fixed reference values.
Key findings
01Urban-dwelling older adults performed better than rural-dwelling older adults on the 10MWT, FTSST, and 6MWT (p < 0.001).
02The urban advantage remained when scores were grouped by age and by sex (p < 0.01).
03The study included 180 Filipino older adults, with 55 rural and 125 urban participants.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study used convenience sampling, so the participants may not represent all older Filipinos. The rural group had 55 participants and the urban group had 125 participants, while the rural sample met the planned size only for fast gait velocity. Fewer participants aged 70 to 79 years were recruited. The testing methods for the 10MWT and FTSST differed from some published studies, so comparisons across studies need caution. The study did not confirm which environmental, social, or health factors explained the differences. Findings may not generalize to countries with different rural-urban characteristics.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The research did not receive any specific grant from public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat these scores as definitive reference values for all Filipino older adults. The study used convenience sampling, the rural group met the planned size only for fast gait velocity, and the authors call the findings preliminary.