Trial reportJournal of the American Geriatrics Society2021
The Effects of Gait Speed and Psychomotor Speed on Risk for Depression and Anxiety in Older Adults with Medical Comorbidities.
Trial report in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Hemispheric asymmetries and network dysfunctions in adolescent depression: A neuroimaging study using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging.World journal of psychiatry · 2025Trial
- Dose-Response Associations of Grip Strength and Gait Speed With Multidimensional Mental Health.Aging medicine (Milton (N.S.W)) · 2025Article
- Interpretable machine learning for depression recognition with spatiotemporal gait features among older adults: a cross-sectional study in Xiamen, China.BMC geriatrics · 2025Article
- The Science of Tai Chi andJournal of integrative and complementary medicine · 2025Review
- Associations between neuropsychiatric symptoms and motoric cognitive risk syndrome.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Factors Associated With Anxiety Symptoms in Older Adults Attending an Outpatient Geriatric Service: A Cross-Sectional Study.Aging medicine (Milton (N.S.W)) · 2025Article
- Article
- The relationship between symptoms of depression and falls in older adults: A case-control study.JAR life · 2025Article
- Decrease in Gait Speed Over Time Is Associated With Increase in Number of Depression Symptoms in Older Adults With Type 2 Diabetes.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2023Article
- Comparative study of young-old and old-old people using functional evaluation, gait characteristics, and cardiopulmonary metabolic energy consumption.BMC geriatrics · 2023Observational
- Reward System Dysfunction and the Motoric-Cognitive Risk Syndrome in Older Persons.Biomedicines · 2022Article
- Influences of dopaminergic system dysfunction on late-life depression.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Review
- The association between physical performance and subjective wellbeing in Chinese older adults: A cross-sectional study.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND/
objectivesGait speed and psychomotor speed slow with age and may predict neuropsychiatric disease such as depression and anxiety. We explored the relative predictive values of gait speed, psychomotor slowing, and a composite index of these two measures on time to new episode depression or anxiety in older adults at risk for these common psychiatric conditions.
designRandomized controlled prevention trial with 15-month follow-up.
settingUniversity-based late-life mental health research clinic.
participantsTwo hundred thirteen individuals, age 60+ years, with subsyndromal symptoms of depression or anxiety and one of the following risk factors for these common conditions: mild cognitive impairment, knee osteoarthritis, or disabilities requiring home-based care.
interventionParticipants in each of the risk factor groups were randomized to a depression-specific preventive intervention or usual care. MEASUREMENTS: Gait speed: 4-m walk test from the Short Physical Performance Battery. Psychomotor speed: Coding task of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status. We created a composite index of slowing by determining whether participants exceeded established cut-offs for slow performance in both gait speed (≤0.8 m/s) and psychomotor speed (<7 on the coding task). Time to new onset syndromal depression/anxiety was measured using research diagnostic criteria.
resultsFifty-four participants developed syndromal depression/anxiety (19.5%) over the course of 15 months. Participants with slowing in both areas were over twice as likely to experience new onset depression/anxiety (hazard ratio (HR) = 2.11; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.02-4.40, P = .046) compared to participants with no slowing in either area. Slowed gait (HR = 1.88; 95% CI = 0.992-3.55; P = .052) or slowed psychomotor speed (HR = 0.60; 95% CI = 0.14-2.58; P = .488) alone did not increase risk for depression/anxiety.
conclusionEvaluating both gait and psychomotor speed in older adults with medical comorbidities and sub-syndromal depression may predict incident mental illness and inform prevention planning. Future research is needed to validate our observations and explore shared neurobiological mechanisms that explain this elevated risk.
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