Physical Function of Older Citizens During Municipality-based Rehabilitation

Older Citizens During Municipality-based Rehabilitation

When choosing outcomes to assess rehabilitation's effect or progress, it is essential to consider the constructs being measured and their value to the patient and the psychometric properties. Choosing an outcome that reflects all aspects of International Classification levels of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is challenging, especially in heterogeneous groups. However, it is important to know the psychometric properties as this gives important knowledge on how to interpret results and, consequently, how this can inform the patient's care. The Short Musculoskeletal Function Assessment (SMFA) questionnaire can reflect differences in patients' functional status with a broad range of disorders, like for elderly citizens undergoing municipality-based rehabilitation. Nevertheless, since there is no golden standard to measure rehabilitation outcomes, construct validity needs to be established to investigate how scores of SMFA can be related to measures on all levels of ICF.

Therefore, this study has three main objectives:

1. To investigate how scores of the SMFA questionnaire are related to measures on different ICF levels
2. To describe the characteristics of older citizens starting municipality-based rehabilitation on all ICF levels
3. To investigate predictor variables of upper- and lower extremity strength

The present study is a sub-study to the Randomized Controlled Trial (NCT04091308).

The present study aims to include 115 participants who will undergo measures specified in the "Outcome" section. The principal investigator of the study will conduct the testing.

Inclusion Criteria:

All citizens that are referred to the health/rehabilitation center aged ≥ 65 years from Slagelse municipality will be invited to a screening interview with a physiotherapist after which the participant will be asked to join the study if not subject to one of the following exclusion criteria's:

Exclusion Criteria:

• Inability to speak or read Danish,
• Active cancer,
• Upper or lower limb amputations,
• Hypertension >180/110,
• Referred to rehabilitation primarily due to gynecological or neurological conditions (apoplexies) or surgeries where movement restrictions prohibit participating in most of the tests,
• Discouragement from a general practitioner.