AUTHOR=Pumpho Ampha , Kaewsanmung Supapon , Keawduangdee Petcharat , Suwannarat Patcharawan , Boonsinsukh Rumpa TITLE=Development of a mobile application for assessing reaction time in walking and TUG duration: Concurrent validity in female older adults JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine VOLUME=10 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2023.1076963 DOI=10.3389/fmed.2023.1076963 ISSN=2296-858X ABSTRACT=Introduction

The TUG can be used to distinguish between people who fall and people who don’t fall. To evaluate cognitive dual-task performance while walking for fall prediction, TUG-dual was frequently employed. A recent study has created a mobile application that enables simple interaction to provide greater convenience for monitoring the duration of TUG, TUG-subtraction, and reaction time.

Objective

The research aim was to ascertain the concurrent validity of the mobile application that was developed for the clinical assessment of TUG, TUG-subtraction, and reaction time.

Methods

Twenty-nine older persons participated in this study. The testing protocol involved the TUG, TUG-subtraction, and reaction time assessment. For TUG and TUG-subtraction, the duration to complete the task was recorded by the APDM Mobility Lab system and the mobile application. For the reaction time tests, the reaction times (msec) were recorded by the Multi Choice Reaction timer and the Mobile application. The TUG durations recorded by the APDM Mobility Lab system were correlated with those recorded by the mobile application to verify the concurrent validity using Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient. Also, the reaction time by the Multi Choice Reaction timer was correlated with the mobile application. Bland-Altman plots were used to explore the existence of any systematic differences between the measurements.

Results

Our results showed very strong correlations between the TUG and TUG-subtraction duration derived from the APDM Mobility Lab system and the mobile application (r = 0.96 and 0.96, respectively). For the reaction time, the results showed a moderate correlation between the reaction time derived from the mobile application and the Multi Choice Reaction Timer (r = 0.67).

Conclusion

The mobile application, which allows measurement in TUG and TUG-subtraction, is a highly valid tool for TUG duration assessment. However, this application is capable for assess the reaction time with moderate validity for reaction time assessment.