After controlling for significant knee injury, age, body mass index, and Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE) score, a recent study determined an 8% relative increase in risk of developing radiographic knee osteoarthritis (rKOA) for every 0.1 m/s decrease in walking speed over a 12-month period. To that end, evaluating change in speed over a 12-month period using a 20-meter walk test may be useful in identifying individuals at increased risk of developing rKOA over the subsequent 24 months. Researchers included participants without rKOA from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (2,638 observations among 1,460 unique participants [58% women; aged 59 ± 9 years, range 45–79]). Change in walking speed was determined from a 20-meter walk assessment, calculated using walking speed at 12-month follow-up minus baseline speed and/or 24-month follow-up walking speed minus 12-month speed. They found:

• The mean change in walking speed over 12 months was 0.001 ± 0.13 m/s (range –0.6271 to 1.4968).
• About 5% of the sample (n=122) developed rKOA over a 24-month period.