Relationship between phase angle and measures of physical unemployment in community-dwelling elderly in Natal-RN
Phase angle, older adults, physical performance, BIA
INTRODUCTION: The phase angle (PhA) is a measure of great clinical relevance provided through of the bioelectrical impedance assessment (BIA). PhA is related to health status of individuals, similarly physical performance measures are also associated to the health status of older individuals, however, studies that examine the relationship between those two measure are scarce. OBJECTIVE: To identify the relationship between PhA and physical performance measures in community dwelling older adults in a Brazilian sample. METHODOLOGY: This was a crosssectional study which 200 community dwelling older adults of both sex, were recruited. The physical performance was evaluated by walking speed and Handgrip Strength, and the PhA was derived from BIA. Linear regression models were used to estimate the associations between PhA and physical performance measures. Two models were build, the first model was adjusted by handgrip and walking speed, the second one was added number of chronic disease, sex, age and BMI. RESULTS: 200 individuals, were evaluated through BIA. Men have mean age of 72.13 ± 3.42 and women 71.94 ± 3.35. Among men, mean PhA was 5.99 ± 0.67 while women the mean obtained was 5.43 ± 0.70. In the linear regression we can observe that handgrip strength (β: 0.415; p-value < 0.001; β: 0.205; p-value: 0.006) and the walking speed (β: 0.162; p-value: 0.012; β: 0.190, p-value: 0.002) as correlated with the PhA in both models. CONCLUSION: The results of this study revealed that PhA of BIA is a good marker of the physical performance in the older adults community-dwelling.