Professor of Physical Therapy Education Charity Johansson and her students presented their research at the 2019 World Confederation of Physical Therapy.
The research presentation, "Challenging Existing Norms for Geriatric Functional Outcome Measures: 6MWT, FTSTS, TUG, and SLS." was co-authored by Claire Hildebrand (DPT 2020), Kailey Treiger (DPT 2019), Brittani Sullivan (DPT 2020), Mackenzie Borrowman (DPT 2020) and Kiana Witherspoon (DPT 2020).
The study's findings indicate that older adults who exercise at the level recommended by the American College of Sports Medicine (at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week) perform significantly better than the established norms on several common functional outcome measures. The authors suggest that healthcare professionals consider using these preliminary normative values rather than the established norms when establishing target performance for healthy aging among older adults.
Johansson and her students are currently working on two manuscripts based on their research.