• Caroline de Fátima Ribeiro Silva, Maycon Sousa Pegorari, Areolino Pena Matos, and Daniela Gonçalves Ohara.
• Postgraduate Program on Health Science, Universidade Federal do Amapá, Macapá, AP, Brazil.
• Sao Paulo Med J. 2020 Mar 1; 138 (2): 112117112-117.

BackgroundDyspnea and poorer physical performance are conditions that may be related and be present among the elderly. However, few studies have evaluated associations between these variables.ObjectiveTo determine whether there is an association between dyspnea and physical performance among community-dwelling older adults of both sexes (age 60 years and over).Design And SettingCross-sectional study conducted in the city of Macapá, state of Amapá, Brazil.MethodsSocioeconomic and health data were collected using a structured form. Frailty syndrome was assessed based on the frailty phenotype proposed by Fried et al. Dyspnea was measured using the modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) scale and physical performance was measured using the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB). Data were analyzed using a linear regression model.ResultsA total of 411 subjects (70.15 ± 7.25 years) were evaluated, most of them females (66.4%). It was observed from the mMRC scale that 30.9% (n = 127) of the subjects had some dyspnea symptoms: grade 1 was most frequent. The physical performance score from the SPPB was 9.22 ± 2.01. Higher dyspnea scores were associated with poor physical performance, both in the crude analysis (β = -0.233; P = 0.028) and after adjustment for frailty condition (β = -0.148; P = 0.002) and for the socioeconomic and health variables (age, sex, number of diseases, smoking habit and frailty status) (β = -0.111; P = 0.025).ConclusionHigher dyspnea score was independently associated with poor physical performance among community-dwelling older adults.

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