title: Mobility, functional ability and health-related quality of life among people of 60 years or older.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Knowledge about Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in advanced age is sparse. This study investigated to what extent mobility factors explained older people's HRQoL when age, gender and functional ability (ADL) were controlled for.
  
  
  METHODS
  Subjects were 1128 people aged 60-96 participating in a Swedish longitudinal multi-center cohort study. Besides descriptive and correlation statistics, a three-tier multiple logistic regression analysis was performed, which included the ADL scale, mobility tests and items, with physical and mental HRQoL as outcome variables.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the models containing the control variables, functional ability was found to be associated with both physical and mental HRQoL. In the models including both functional ability and mobility factors, the importance of functional ability remained for mental but not for physical HRQoL. The mobility factors were found to have a stronger negative influence on HRQoL, i.e., physical and mental, than functional ability in itself.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  For optimal identification of various types of disabilities and their impact on older people's HRQoL, the ADL scale should be used together with more targetspecific tests of disabilities. However, in certain situations, it appears that one mobility factor alone - the ability to walk - has the capacity to pick up changes in both physical and mental HRQoL. Thus, it is important that healthcare professionals should focus activities toward maintaining older people's mobility as a means of enhancing their HRQoL.
authors.affiliation: School of Health Science, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Blekinge Institute of Technology, SE-371 39 Karlskrona, Sweden. Cecilia.Fagerstrom@bth.se
authors.forename: Cecilia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fagerström
authors.forename: Gunilla
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Borglin
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity; D011788:Quality of Life