Analyze your patients’ fall risk – 5 Times Sit to Stand

What is the 5TSTS Test?

The 5TSTS is a popular test for predicting risk of recurrent falls particularly in the elder population. It’s a quick and easy test to perform, but Equio helps you make sure that you assess your patients’ condition more objectively than ever before.

Why is the 5TSTS relevant?

For patients with impaired balance and proprioceptive systems making certain movements such as standing up from a sitting position can be a challenge, and a risk for falls. For this reason, when helping patients through balance rehabilitation, therapists need a tool to evaluate the patients’ ability to do this kind of transitional movements.

Equio includes the 5 Times Sit to Stand test within its multiple other objective assessment tools. Keep on reading to learn how it works!

How do we measure the 5TSTS test with Equio?

Equio includes four force sensors that keep track and monitor the patient’s movement which not only helps therapists in making a more objective evaluation, but also in monitoring the patients’ progress though their physical rehabilitation journey.

Instructions

1. We will need a chair for the patient to sit on. Equio should be placed right in front of the chair/slightly underneath it allowing for the legs to be in a 90 degree angle, both facing the screen.

2. Ask your patient to sit on the chair, back straight and arms folded across their chest and feet on the Equio board.

3. Before going through with the test, we should do a test run. Then, after the therapist clicks the Start button, the patient must stand up and sit down five times in a row as fast as they are able to.

4. Once all 5 repetitions are done, a small window with our patient’s result will show up and we will be able to save it.

The results will also be presented in an aggregated radar graph for comparison with the other objective assessments included in the Equio software. You can read about those assessments on the links at the end of this post.

Interpretation of the result

After the patient has completed the 5 Times Sit to Stand test, we will see the overall time (in seconds) that it took them in a small pop-up window.

When interpreting the patient’s performance on the test, it is important to take into consideration factors such as age, knee extension strength and others.

However, to make it easier to understand, here is a table with a normative mean time by age group:

Patient AgeMean time in seconds
60-6912.0
70-7912.3
80-8917.1
90-10122.5
Source: Lusardi et Al, 2003, p.18.

Another study by Buatois et al. (2008) points out that patient with a mean time higher than 15 seconds present a higher risk of recurrent falls than those with lower scores.

Common questions:

  • Why is the result of my 5TSTS test not appearing on the radar analysis graph?

First check that the result for 5TSTS is stored in the analysis menu. If it isn’t this means that you didn’t save the result after completing the assessment.

If this was not the case, then check again your result. If it was a very high number (above 20 seconds), then this means that it’s equivalent to 0 points in the radar chart. As the patient’s score improves (drops below 20 seconds), you will see it on the radar chart.

Do you have any questions regarding the Five Times Sit to Stand assessment? Leave us a comment in the contact us section and we will help you.


References:

Buatois, S., Miljkovic, D., Manckoundia, P., Gueguen, R., Miget, P., Vançon, G., Perrin, P. P., & Benetos, A. (2008). FIVE TIMES SIT TO STAND TEST IS A PREDICTOR OF RECURRENT FALLS IN HEALTHY COMMUNITY-LIVING SUBJECTS AGED 65 AND OLDER. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 56(8), 1575–1577. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-5415.2008.01777.x

Lusardi, M. M., Pellecchia, G. L., & Schulman, M. (2003). Functional Performance in Community Living Older Adults. Journal of Geriatric Physical Therapy, 26(3), 14–22. https://doi.org/10.1519/00139143-200312000-00003

Whitney, S. L., Wrisley, D. M., Marchetti, G. F., Gee, M. A., Redfern, M. S., & Furman, J. M. (2005). Clinical Measurement of Sit-to-Stand Performance in People With Balance Disorders: Validity of Data for the Five-Times-Sit-to-Stand Test. Physical Therapy, 85(10), 1034–1045. https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/85.10.1034