Problems with walking, balance and coordination among seniors could be an early signal of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, Group Health and University of Washington researchers said Monday, May 22.
Their findings are based on a study of more than 2,000 members of Group Health Cooperative age 65 and older, who were followed for six years. None initially showed signs of Alzheimer’s or dementia.
A link was found between mind and body in aging patients – problems with balance and walking or gait, and later problems with dementia.
“With aging, your gait slows. … If your gait slows a lot, the odds are higher that your mind also is going to be slowing in a way that often leads to Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Eric Larson, director of Group Health’s Center for Health Studies.
Larson was one of a group of researchers who reported the findings Monday in a medical journal, the Archives of Internal Medicine.
In the past, Larson said, people often thought the earliest signs of the disease would be subtle cognitive changes or problems with mental processing.
The study underscored that physical problems preceded development of the disease, he said.
“The people who did the worst in terms of their walking speed, those were the people who had quite a high rate of developing Alzheimer’s in the next six years,” he said.
Patients were asked to do simple physical tests. These included how well they could balance themselves while standing and timing how long it took them to walk 10 feet. They were retested every two years.
Those who did best on the physical tests at the start of the study were three times less likely to develop dementia than those who scored lower.
Having balance problems is common as people age and not necessarily a sign of dementia, said Dr. Bill Likosky of Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.
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