Walking into aging: real-world mobility patterns and digital benchmarks from the InCHIANTI Study

Abstract

Mobility is a cornerstone of health and quality of life, particularly in older adults. Digital mobility outcomes (DMOs) from real-world walking data offer crucial insights into the functional status and early markers of mobility decline. This study provides reference values for walking activity, pace, rhythm, and gait bout-to-bout variability in community-dwelling older adults and evaluates the effects of age, sex, height, and weight on these parameters. Using data from 200 older adults (aged 65-94 years) from the InCHIANTI Study and applying the Mobilise-D computational pipeline, we analyzed real-world walking over a week. Significant differences by sex and age were found, with males showing higher walking activity in younger age groups (65-74 and 75-84 years) but not in the oldest group (85-94 years). Additionally, we observed non-linear trends in mobility metrics with age, indicating an accelerated reduction in mobility at certain age ranges. These findings underscore the importance of monitoring real-world walking data to pinpoint critical periods of mobility decline and guide targeted interventions. This work offers valuable benchmarks for clinical assessments and future research.

We want to acknowledge the participants who volunteered to take part in the clinical studies. Their contribution has been vital to the successful completion of the present study. The InCHIANTI baseline study (1998–2000) was supported as a “targeted project” (ICS110.1/RF97.71) by the Italian Ministry of Health and in part by the U.S. National Institute on Aging (Contracts: 263 MD 9164 and 263 MD 821336); the InCHIANTI follow-up study 1 (2001–2003) was funded by the U.S. National Institute on Aging (Contracts: N.1-AG[1]1-1 and N.1-AG-1-2111); the InCHIANTI follow-up study 4 and 5 were supported by the Agency for Regional Health Care of Tuscany (Reg. n° 586/R, 26/10/2012). This research was co-funded by the Italian Complementary National Plan PNC-I.1 Research initiatives for innovative technologies and pathways in the health and welfare sector” D.D. 931 of 06/06/2022, DARE - DigitAl lifelong pRevEntion initiative, code PNC0000002, CUP: B53C22006450001. The study has been funded in part by the European Union (Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement No.: 288940 (FARSEEING project)), and by the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 820820 (Mobilise[1]D). This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA. S.D.D. was also supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (IMI2 JU) project IDEA-FAST - Grant Agreement 853981 and by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) based at The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle University and the Cumbria, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear (CNTW) NHS Foundation Trust. S.D.D. was supported by the NIHR/Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility (CRF) infrastructure at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. S.D.D. was also supported by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (Grant Ref: EP/W031590/1, Grant Ref: EP/X031012/1 and Grant Ref: EP/X036146/1).