Can Gait Predict Mortality Risk in Heart Failure Patients?

Gait speed is accurate in predicting 1-year mortality risk in elderly patients with heart failure, according to new research.

Researchers wanted to assess the connection between gait speed and the risk of 1-year mortality and/or hospitalization due to heart failure in elderly patients.

To investigate this connection, researchers followed 331 patients aged 70 years and older who were receiving optimized therapy for chronic heart failure.
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Gait speed was measured based on a 4-meter distance, and then patients were grouped based on their speed: 0.65 or less meters per second, 0.66 to 0.99 meters per second, and 1.0 or more meters per second.

Patients also were assigned a Cardiac and Comorbid Conditions Heart Failure (3C-HF) risk score.

After a 1-year follow-up, researchers found that gait speed was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality, all-cause hospitalization, and hospitalization due to heart failure.

Those in the slowest gait speed group had a 38% risk of 1-year mortality, those in the intermediate group had a 22% risk, and those in the fastest group had a 9% risk. Adding patients’ gait speed to their 3C-HF score increased the accuracy for all-cause mortality and hospitalizations due to heart failure.

“Gait speed is independently associated with death, hospitalization for HF, and all-cause hospitalization and improves risk stratification in older patients with HF evaluated using the 3C-HF score,” researchers concluded. “Assessment of frailty using gait speed is simple and should be part of the clinical evaluation process.”

—Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Pulignano G, Del Sindaco D, Di Lenarda A, et al. Incremental value of gait speed in predicting prognosis of older adults with heart failure: Insights from the IMAGE-HF study. JCHF. Published online March 2016. doi:10.1016/j.jchf.2015.12.017.