Does walking slowly mean something is wrong?
In adults over 65 it is treated as a vital sign. Across 34,485 of them, every 0.1 metres a second faster went with roughly 12 percent lower mortality, in a smooth gradient with no cliff anywhere along it.
The two numbers people quote need translating. At or under 0.8 m/s is where predicted survival matches the median for your age and sex, which makes it a break-even marker rather than a danger line. At or above 1.0 m/s is where survival runs better than age and sex alone would suggest.
Under sixty those thresholds have no validated meaning, and most pages quoting them do not say so. Walking speed is also a readout rather than a lever: it sums up heart, lungs, nerves, joints and thinking at once, so walking faster on purpose does not move you along the curve. The things that make the speed do.
Source: Studenski et al, JAMA 2011
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Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS · How we review
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