Benefits of walking for older adults: NPR story missed a cautionary detail

Does the story adequately quantify the benefits of the treatment/test/product/procedure?

Not Satisfactory

While quantification was minimal in this story, we’ll rate it barely satisfactory since it states those participating in the physical activity part of the study “cut the amount of time that people spent with a “major mobility disability” — defined as being unable to walk a quarter mile — by 25 percent compared to the education program.”  But 25% of what?

It also stated that, “Previous findings from the same study showed that the exercise program lowered the risk of becoming disabled in the first place; this one showed that it sped recovery from an episode of disability and lowered the risk of subsequent episodes.”  However, it failed to explain how much that risk was lowered, or whether it was an absolute risk or a relative risk.  Statements offered by others in the story said that “people who engage in physical activity have a lower risk for heart disease, diabetes, certain cancers, depression, cognitive impairment and functional decline,” but gave no measures of how much those risks were lowered.

Does the story adequately explain/quantify the harms of the intervention?

Not Satisfactory

This story basically recommends physical activity for the elderly, which most experts would support. But the study in question focused on “sedentary people between 70 and 89 years old who had some functional limitations, but who could walk about a quarter of a mile in 15 minutes or less, unassisted by another person or a walker. (Canes were OK.)”  There is obviously a great deal of variation in a population that broad and many included in that age bracket may also have balance, pain or stability issues that might preclude jumping into a similar program.  We would have been happier if the story focused early on any new program of physical activity being clearly linked to an initial consult with the person’s physician.  While the story does mention at the end that the authors of an accompanying editorial advised physicians that, “Prescribing exercise may be just as important as prescribing medications — perhaps even more important in some cases,” that seemed insufficient compared to the consequences of physical-activity-induced injury among the elderly.

Does the story seem to grasp the quality of the evidence?

Not Satisfactory

As mentioned before, the story showed that the physical activity program “sped recovery from an episode of disability and lowered the risk of subsequent episodes” by 25 percent.  It also explains that the study itself followed 1,600 participants for about 2.7 years — a considerable length of time for such a study.  But that’s really the extent of the information offered.  It describes participants only as being “sedentary” without defining the extent of that state.  Nor does it give any information about the strength or endurance of the participants at the beginning and at the end of the study, indications that might help readers place themselves in a comparable continuum.  It doesn’t even provide a gender breakdown of the participants although we know there are gender differences in stress and exercise among the aged.  The story, while informative, deserved more specific information.