Timed up and go (TUG) test

• frailty status can be assessed using the Edmonton Frailty Scale (EFS) (1,2)
  
  
  • consists of nine domains and eleven items, each scoring 0 points (frailty absent or normal health), 1 point (minor errors or mild/moderate impairment), or 2 points (important errors or severely impaired)
    
    
    • domains include cognitive impairment, autoevaluation of general health status, functional dependency, presence of social support, drug treatments and adherence, nutrition and mood, presence of incontinence, and the 'timed up and go (TUG)' test
      
      
      • TUG tests the basic mobility skills of frail elderly persons
        • consists of a measurement of the time in seconds for a person to rise from sitting from a standard arm chair, walk 3 m, turn, walk back to the chair, and sit down
        • Podsiadlo and Richardson in their original description of this test defined (3)
          • a cut off score of >=20 seconds was shown to predict falls in community-dwelling frail elderly people
        • Shumway-Cook et al in a later study defined a cut off score of > 14 seconds to predict the risk of falling (83% probability of being a faller)
        • the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) define a cut off score of > = 12 seconds to predict risk of falling in an elderly person (4)
          
          
• EFS total score from 0 to 3 points indicates no frailty; 4 or 5 points indicate prefrailty; 6 to 8 points indicates frailty; and 9 to 17 points indicates severe frailty

Click here for an example EFS calculator

Reference:

• Rolfson DB, Majumdar SR, Tsuyuki RT, Tahir A, Rockwood K. Validity and reliability of the Edmonton Frail Scale. Age Ageing . 2006; 6:526-529
• de Vries NM, Staal JB, van Ravensberg CD, Hobbelen JSM, Olde Rikkert MGM, Nijhuis-van der Sanden MWG. Outcome instruments to measure frailty: a systematic review. Ageing Res Rev . 2011; 10(1):104-114.
• Podsiadlo D, Richardson S. The timed up & go: a test of basic functional mobility for frail elderly persons. J Am Geriatr Soc . 1991;39:142-148.
• Shumway-Cook A et al. Predicting the Probability for Falls in Community-Dwelling Older Adults Using the Timed Up & Go Test.Physical Therapy, Volume 80, Issue 9, 1 September 2000, Pages 896-903
• CDC govt. TUG Available from:https://www.cdc.gov/steadi/pdf/TUG_Test-print.pdf (Accessed 16/3/2021)