Refers to a gap between an individual’s physical abilities and environmental challenges such as walking outdoors or on uneven surfaces.
Physical abilities include muscle strength and balance.
Can range from limitations only in highly challenging environment to severity that includes bedbound status.
Mobility refers to a person’s physical ability to walk or move and also takes into account the persons environment and one’s ability to adapt to it.
Mobility is assessed by evaluating one’s ability to transfer from bed or chair, to walk a quarter of a mile, or climb stairs independently.
Can be judged as a distance can travel with or without assistance and its evaluation is individualized to identify and manage limitations.
Often the first sign of functional decline of an individual.
A common process, in that, one third of older adults have difficulty walking three city blocks.
In older adults with limited activities of daily living, approximately one third have difficulty walking across a small room.
Associated with depression, and decreased quality-of-life.
More strongly correlated with health-related quality-of-life than a medical comorbidity.
Can lead to social isolation, loneliness and diminished social participation.
Can affect physical, psychological and social aspect of an individual.
Loss of independent mobility in the elderly associated with higher rates of functional disability, nursing home placement and mortality.
Can be a result of an acute event such as a stroke, or can be secondary to a slowly progressive functional loss.
Older women with strength and balance limitations are 10 times more likely to have a severe walking disability compared to similar age women who had only one of the limitations.
Older adults who experience low mobility during hospitalization are at substantially increased risk of decreased strengthand function, which may lead to long-term mobility disability.
Half of permanent disability in the elderly begins with hospitalization.
Two of three older adults who experience hospital acquired disability will be placed in a nursing home or die within a year of discharge.
Low hospital mobility is indicated by the fact older adults spend a mean of 45 minutes per day out of their hospital bed, which is less than 5% of the 24 hour period.