[Reliability of the PRISCUS-PAQ. Questionnaire to assess physical activity of persons aged 70 years and older]. / Reliabilität des PRISCUS-PAQ. Fragebogen zur Erfassung körperlicher Aktivität von Personen im Alter von 70 Jahren und älter.

A questionnaire (Q) to measure physical activity (PA) of persons ≥70 years for epidemiological research is lacking. The aim was to develop the PRISCUS-PAQ and test the reliability in community-dwelling people (≥70 years). Validated PA questionnaires were translated and adapted to design the PRISCUS-PAQ. Its test-retest reliability for 91 randomly selected people (36% men) aged 70-98 (76±5) years ranged from 0.47 (walking) to 0.82 (riding a bicycle). The overall activity score was 0.59 as determined by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Recording of general activities, e.g., housework (ICC=0.59), was in general less reliable than athletic activities, e.g., gymnastics (ICC=0.76). The PRISCUS-PAQ, which is a short instrument with acceptable reliability to collect the physical activity of the elderly in a telephone interview, will be used to collect data in a large cohort of older people in the German research consortium PRISCUS.

[Comparison of two coronary risk equivalents: diabetes mellitus and peripheral arterial disease]. / Risiken der Koronaräquivalente Diabetes mellitus und Periphere Arterielle Verschlusskrankheit im Vergleich.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Diabetes mellitus (DM) and peripheral arterial disease (PAD) are both coronary artery disease equivalents ("coronary equivalents"). It was the aim of this study to ascertain (1) to what extent each of these diseases differs from the other in respect of early death, (2) how frequently DM and PAD occur together in elderly patients seen in general practice and (3) what risk patients with DM and concomitant PAD carry. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In the prospective non-interventional study--"German Epidemiological Trial on Ankle Brachial Index"--6,880 unselected patients, aged 65 years or more, from 344 general medical practices were followed over five years and the incidence of deaths and of cardiovascular events recorded. DM was defined according to the medical diagnosis and/or if the HbA1c was > or = 6.5% and the ankle brachial index (ABI), determined by Doppler sonography. PAD was defined as an ABI of < 0.9 or the presence of intermittent claudication or state after peripheral revascularization/amputation. Survival rates were obtained using Kaplan-Meier estimate curves and Cox's proportional hazard model. 59 patients with an ABI > 1.5 were excluded from the study. Hazard ratios (HR with 95% confidence intervals [CI]) were adjusted according to known risk factors. RESULTS: The overall observation period for all the patients amounted to nearly 33000 patient-years (PY). The risk of death of patients with DM but no PAD (n = 1,220; 17.9%) was 1.5 times the risk of death (HR, 95% CI 1.2-1.8) of persons with neither disease (n = 4 172; 61.2%) and the risk of those with PAD but no DM (n = 918, 13;5%) was 1.7 times of those persons without either disease (HR, 95% CI 1.4-2.0). The risk for persons with DM and PAD (n = 511; 7.5%) was nearly 3 times that of persons without either disease, after adjustment for other cardiovascular risk factors (HR 2.8, 95% CI 2.3-3.4). The lower the ABI in persons with or without DM the greater the number of deaths per 1000 PY. CONCLUSIONS: These results confirm that diabetics and patients with PAD have a clearly increased risk of early death. These patients need intensive treatment of the risk factors. This is especially true for patients who have DM and PAD concomitantly.