Screening Value of Timed Up and Go Test for Frailty and Low Physical Performance in Korean Older Population: The Korean Frailty and Aging Cohort Study (KFACS)

BACKGROUND: We evaluated the validity of the Timed Up and Go test (TUG) to screen for physical frailty and low physical performance in a nationwide community-dwelling Korean older population. METHODS: We used baseline records of 3,010 ambulatory participants with TUG data from the Korean Frailty Aging Cohort Study from 2016 to 2017. The population-specific distribution of TUG was assessed. Physical frailty was defined as ≥3 positive items in the 5-item Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) frailty scale, and low physical performance was assessed as Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) scores ≤9 (ranging from 0 to 12). RESULTS: In men (n=1,429) and women (n=1,581), the mean TUG times were 10.3±2.7 seconds and 10.2±3.0 seconds, respectively. The cut-off TUG times for the worst quintile were 11.8 seconds in men and 12.5 seconds in women. The TUG time was correlated with both the CHS frailty scale score (standardized beta [B]=0.36, p<0.001) and SPPB total score (B=-0.22, p<0.001) in the linear regression analysis adjusted for age and sex. In the receiver operating characteristic analysis, the performance of TUG in identifying physical frailty, calculated as the area under the curve (AUC), was 0.87, while the AUC of TUG in identifying low physical performance according to SPPB was 0.86. CONCLUSION: In the Korean older population, TUG can be a simple measure to identify physical frailty and low physical performance so as to identify populations that may benefit from in-depth geriatric assessments.