The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) recently released an Insights blog, "Rethinking Mobility to Improve Care for Older Adults," and a toolkit with details on age-friendly mobility assessment tools.

The blog describes how mobility is the foundation for living a healthy and independent life and supporting it is a crucial part of age-friendly care. Blog author, Luisana Henriquez Garcia, IHI Project Manager, talked with Cynthia Brown, MD, MSPH, chair of the Department of Medicine at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, an expert on mobility and older adults.

The related one-page collection of age-friendly mobility assessment tools to evaluate mobility in a variety of care settings lists and describes several of these tools. The publication notes to "keep in mind as you are choosing your tool that our goal is to assess mobility, not just fall prevention. Other factors to consider are: your population, and practical aspects of the tests’ administration."

To read the blog, click here

To download the mobility assessment tools PDF file, click here

To learn more about the Age-Friendly Health Systems (AFHS) initiative, click here