NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The amount of breath an elderly person can exhale -- what doctor's call peak expiratory flow (PEF) -- is associated with the subsequent development of disability and with risk of death in non-institutionalized elderly individuals, Connecticut-based researchers report.
Measuring PEF is simple and inexpensive and should be considered as a standard risk assessment tool for elderly populations, Dr. Carlos A. Vaz Fragoso of Yale University, New Haven and colleagues conclude.
They assessed PEF, using a peak flow meter, in 754 initially healthy non-disabled community-living residents aged at least 70 years. Their average age was 78.4 years.
They were followed via monthly interviews over a period of 5 years.
After adjustment for factors including smoking and chronic lung disease, the team found that roughly 23 percent had a PEF below the 10th percentile.
And this group had a far greater risk of developing persistent disabilities in daily living and impaired mobility and of dying over 5 years than those with a PEF in the 80th-100th percentile.
"These results," the researchers conclude, "support the use of PEF as a potentially valuable risk assessment tool in community-living older persons."
SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, June 2008.
