Conclusion The Timed Up and Go test has limited ability to predict  falls in community dwelling elderly and should not be used in isolation to identify individuals at high risk of falls in this setting
Background The Timed Up and Go test ( TUG ) is a commonly used screening tool to assist clinicians to identify patients at risk of falling .
The purpose of this systematic review and meta- analysis is to determine the overall predictive value of the TUG in community-dwelling older adults .
Properties of the ‘Timed Up and Go’ Test: More than Meets the Eye
Background : The  ‘ timed up and go ’ test ( TUG ) is a simple , quick and widely used clinical performance-based measure of lower extremity function , mobility and fall risk . We speculated that its properties may be different from other performance-based tests and assessed whether cognitive function may contribute to the differences among these tests in a cohort of healthy older adults . Objective : To evaluate psychometric properties of the TUG in healthy older adults in comparison to the Berg balance test ( BBT ) and the Dynamic Gait Index ( DGI ) . Methods : The  TUG , DGI and BBT  were assessed in 265 healthy older adults ( 76.4 ± 4.3 years ; 58.3 % women ) who participated in a 3-year prospect i ve study . The  Mini-Mental State Examination , digit span and verbal fluency measured cognitive function . The one- sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test evaluated deviations from a normal distribution and Pearson ’s correlation coefficients quantified associations . Results : The mean scores of the BBT , DGI and TUG were : 54.0 ± 2.4 , 22.8 ± 1.5 , 9.5 ± 1.7 s , respectively . The BBT and the DGI were not normally distributed ( p < 0.001 ) , but the TUG was ( p = 0.713 ) . The TUG times were mildly associated ( p < 0.01 ) with digit span and verbal fluency and were related to future falls , while the BBT and the DGI were not . Conclusions : The TUG appears to be an appropriate tool for clinical assessment of functional mobility even in healthy older adults . It does not suffer from ceiling effect limitations , is normally distributed and is apparently related to executive function . The BBT and the DGI do not share these beneficial properties . Perhaps the transferring and turning components of the TUG help to convert this relatively simple motor task into a more complex measure that also depends on cognitive re sources
Conclusion The Timed Up and Go test has limited ability to predict  falls in community dwelling elderly and should not be used in isolation to identify individuals at high risk of falls in this setting
Background The Timed Up and Go test ( TUG ) is a commonly used screening tool to assist clinicians to identify patients at risk of falling .
The purpose of this systematic review and meta- analysis is to determine the overall predictive value of the TUG in community-dwelling older adults .