Sitting-rising test may predict death risk in middle-aged, older adults: Study

A test that checks how easily one sits on and rises from the floor could predict risk of death among middle-aged and older adults, according to a study.

The `sitting-rising test` — a non-aerobic fitness assessment of muscle strength, flexibility, balance, and body composition — could add relevant clinical and predictive information to routine examinations of healthy and unhealthy individuals, researchers said.

The team, including researchers from Exercise Medicine Clinic-CLINIMEX, Brazil, scored nearly 4,300 adults, aged 46-75 and who performed the test, from zero to five — one point was deducted from five for each time a support of hand or knee was used, and 0.5 for an unsteadiness in movements.

Over a typical follow-up period of 12 years, during which there were 665 deaths, the study, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, found a “continuous trend for higher mortality with low SRT (sitting-rising test) scores”.

Death rates of those with lowest scores were found to be 42 per cent, and those with highest sitting-rising scores 3.7 per cent.

Comparing the two groups, the one with lowest scores were analysed to be at an almost a 300 per cent higher chance of death due to natural cause and 500 per cent higher chance of death due to cardiovascular reasons.

“Non-aerobic physical fitness, as assessed by SRT (sitting-rising test), was a significant predictor of natural and (cardiovascular) mortality in 46-75-year-old participants,” the authors wrote.

They added, “Death rates were 3.7 per cent for those having (a test) score of 10, tripled for 11.1 per cent with a score of 8 and dramatically increased by 42.1 per cent in the 10 per cent of participants with the lowest score (0-4).”

While studies have measured non-aerobic fitness for predicting health outcomes, typically one component is tested in isolation or multiple tests are used to assess the main components of non-aerobic fitness, the researchers said.

Further, some of these tests depicted situations not part of everyday life, including the five times or 30-second sit-and-stand (as fast as possible) or hitting maximum push-ups with a metronome set at 80 beats a minute, they added.

In the last 25 years, the sitting-rising test has been applied in varied settings across diverse sections of society — children, adolescents, and adults — and is possibly the simplest, most complete non-aerobic fitness tool to assess all of its components together, the authors said.

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