{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]],"date-time":"2026-05-29T18:06:11Z","timestamp":1780077971885,"version":"3.54.0"},"reference-count":25,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]],"date-time":"2026-05-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1780012800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000049","name":"National Institute on Aging","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["R03AG078957"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["R03AG078957"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000049","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000049","name":"National Institute on Aging","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["R01AG045252"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["R01AG045252"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000049","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000049","name":"National Institute on Aging","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["P30AG024827"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["P30AG024827"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000049","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS One"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Mobility assessments are essential for evaluating baseline function and monitoring responses to interventions in older adults. Usual-pace gait speed and the 6-minute walk test (6MWT) are widely used and reproducible measures with established minimum clinically important differences (MCIDs) to distinguish responders from non-responders. However, both require in-person administration, limiting their scalability in clinical trials and population-based studies. Walking cadence, a measure of walking intensity that can be captured digitally, may offer a scalable alternative for identifying responders versus non-responders to mobility interventions. We conducted a secondary analysis of the prospective Program to Improve Mobility in Aging (PRIMA) cohort trial to evaluate whether changes in walking cadence after a walking intervention could identify responders versus non-responders. Cadence was measured during usual-pace gait speed testing and the 6MWT, and logistic regression models assessed its ability to predict achievement of MCIDs for gait speed (&gt;0.1 m\/s) and 6MWT distance (&gt;30 m) in older adults. Data from 213 participants were analyzed. Change in median walking cadence predicted improvement in usual-pace gait speed with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.90 (95% CI: 0.85\u20130.94). The Youden Index identified an increase of \u22653 steps\/min as the optimal threshold (sensitivity 0.81; specificity 0.88). For predicting improvement in 6MWT distance, the AUC was 0.80 (95% CI: 0.74\u20130.86), with the same \u22653 steps\/min threshold (sensitivity 0.75; specificity 0.77). These findings suggest that changes in walking cadence during usual-pace gait and the 6MWT may serve as a digitally measurable outcome to identify responders to mobility interventions. Further research is warranted to validate these findings in remote and real-world applications.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0337414","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]],"date-time":"2026-05-29T17:28:55Z","timestamp":1780075735000},"page":"e0337414","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Change in walking cadence as a digital outcome measure of clinically meaningful improvement in gait speed and 6-minute walk test distance after a mobility intervention in older adults"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"21","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0490-1186","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Daniel S.","family":"Rubin","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2265-0162","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Nancy 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