Purpose : The purpose of the present study was to conduct a 5-year follow-up on the effect of physical fitness on falling in older women. Methods : Thirty-nine older women (79.9±3.7 years old) living at home volunteered to participate as subjects. Walking speeds, muscular strength, flexibility, agility and balance were measured. For the following five years, we checked their record of falling accidents. The subjects were classified into two groups : the faller group (n=14) with at least one or more experiences of falling accidents in the past five years, and the non-faller (n=23). Results and Discussion : The physical fitness of the faller group was compared with that of the non-faller group five years ago. Normal and fast walking speeds in the faller group were significantly slower than those in the non-faller. In the faller group more members had reduced muscular strength and range of motion than in the non-faller. The reaction time in the faller group was significantly slower than in the non-faller. Falling accidents occurred easily because subjects' trunk and hip flexibility had become limited, and the delay in reaction time meant they couldn't recover as quickly from their loss of balance. Conclusions : From these results, it was suggested that functional decline in flexibility as well as agility and muscular strength would greatly affect falling in older women.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relation between the deterioration of walking speed and physical fitness. Sixty-two elderly women (80.4±4.0 years old) volunteered to participate as subjects. Walking speeds at normal and fast speeds on a 10 m straight course, as well as muscular strength, flexibility, agility and balance were measured.
Normal and fast walking speeds decreased through aging, and mostly depended on the strength of lower extremity muscles (hip extensor, hip abductor, knee extensor and ankle plantar flexor ; normal walking : r=0.596-0.666, p<0.01, fast walking : r=0.623-0.727, p<0.01) . However, the distributions of walking speed to the strength of each measured muscle were divided into two phases. The weaker group of lower extremity muscle strength had much slower walking speed. The two groups, divided according to muscular strength (the sum of the T scores of the four muscular strengths of the lower extremity) showed the following differing results. In the “high” muscular strength group (n=31) the highest factor was lower extremity muscle strength, but it was the delay of nerve reaction time in the “low” muscular strength group (n=31) .
From these results, it was clarified that the main factor in the deterioration of walking speed in elderly women was the decline of lower extremity muscle strength. However, it was suggested that the functional decline of the nervous system would greatly affect the decrease of walking speed in elderly with weaker muscular strength.