Systemic effects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in young-old adults’ life-space mobility

Isabel Fialho Fontenele Garcia,1 Carina Tiemi Tiuganji,1 Maria do Socorro Morais Pereira Simões,2 Ilka Lopes Santoro,3 Adriana Claudia Lunardi1,2 1Master’s and Doctoral Programs in Physical Therapy, Universidade Cidade de São Paulo, 2Department of Physical Therapy, School of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, 3Respiratory Division, Pulmonary Rehabilitation Center, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil Purpose: The objective was to assess whether dyspnea, peripheral muscle strength and the level of physical activity are correlated with life-space mobility of older adults with COPD.Patients and methods: Sixty patients over 60 years of age (40 in the COPD group and 20 in the control group) were included. All patients were evaluated for lung function (spirometry), life-space mobility (University of Alabama at Birmingham Study of Aging Life-Space Assessment), dyspnea severity (Modified Dyspnea Index), peripheral muscle strength (handgrip dynamometer), level of physical activity and number of daily steps (accelerometry). Groups were compared using unpaired t-test. Pearson’s correlation was used to test the association between variables.Results: Life-space mobility (60.41±16.93 vs 71.07±16.28 points), dyspnea (8 [7–9] vs 11 [10–11] points), peripheral muscle strength (75.16±14.89 vs 75.50±15.13 mmHg), number of daily steps (4,865.4±2,193.3 vs 6,146.8±2,376.4 steps), and time spent in moderate to vigorous activity (197.27±146.47 vs 280.05±168.95 minutes) were lower among COPD group compared to control group (p