Walking aids plus training improved mobility after emergency care
Older adults who qualified for a walking aid had better mobility scores after discharge. Adding telemonitoring showed no statistically significant advantage over aids and training alone.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
Providing walking aids with physiotherapist assessment and training improved mobility and reduced fear of falling compared with advice alone. Adding telemonitoring did not produce statistically significant extra improvements on the reported measures. The results apply to older emergency patients who already met criteria for a walking aid, rather than older adults generally.
The study involved a single geriatric emergency department and a small sample. Although falls were assessed, the abstract does not report whether actual falls became less frequent.
What researchers found
Life Space Assessment mobility score
Walking aids plus training versus advice alone at 90 days; mean difference on the mobility scale.
Mobility and fear are distinct
The primary measures covered life-space mobility and fear of falling. A lower fear score is a psychological outcome; it cannot establish that fewer falls occurred, which was a separate outcome assessed in the trial.
What telemonitoring adds
Both intervention groups received help with device use, while telemonitoring was intended to support adherence. Its nonsignificant comparison with training alone does not prove the approaches are equivalent or exclude a smaller additional benefit.
The original publication
Walking Aids and Locomotion Training in the Emergency Department: A Randomized Clinical Trial.
Polesel FS, Denadai S, Morinaga CV et al.
JAMA Netw Open · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 41269694
- Record checked
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