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Making Geriatric Assessment Work: Selecting Useful Measures

JM VanSwearingen, PT, PhD, is Associate Professor of Physical Therapy, Department of Physical Therapy, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, 6035 Forbes Tower, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (USA) (jessievs+{at}pitt.edu).
JS Brach, PT, PhD, GCS, is Clinical Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy, Department of Physical Therapy, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, and a postdoctoral fellow, Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh

Address all correspondence to Dr VanSwearingen

Often the goal of physical therapy is to reduce morbidity and prevent or delay loss of independence. The purpose of this article is to describe issues to consider when selecting measures of physical function for use with community-dwelling adults over the age of 65 years. We chose 16 measures of physical function for review because they have been used in studies of community-dwelling older adults and some psychometric properties of reliability and validity have been described in the literature. Three major issues are discussed: (1) appropriateness of the measure for community-dwelling older adults, (2) practical aspects of test administration, and (3) psychometric properties. These issues are illustrated using examples from the 16 measures. Two scenarios, applying the measures to the assessment of physical performance of community-dwelling well older people and to the assessment of physical performance of community-dwelling frail older people, are used to illustrate how this information can be used.

Key Words: Geriatric assessment • Physical functioning

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