Sarcopenia Assessment Techniques

Review article: Putting some muscle into sarcopenia—the pathogenesis, assessment and clinical impact of muscle loss in patients with inflammatory bowel disease

“…Normative values for handgrip in the general population are available in the literature and the current guidelines state that sarcopenia is defined by a handgrip score that is >2 SDs from the mean for the sex and age group 70 . Additional assessments of physical performance include the ‘Timed Get Up‐and‐Go’ test, the 7‐min walk test and the ‘Short Physical Performance Battery’ 62 . These tests are commonly used in the elderly population to assess for muscle weakness and frailty, however, they are very rarely, if ever, used in the IBD population to assess for sarcopenia.…”

“…Anthropometric testing to evaluate muscle mass has been proposed as a simple, rapid and inexpensive surrogate for cross‐sectional imaging to assess for sarcopenia 62 . The most common testing includes a mid‐upper arm circumference (MUAC) and triceps skin fold thickness.…”

“…While there are numerous studies evaluating the use of CT, MRI Bopari et al 90 Ge et al 91 Lee et al 65 Grillot et al 92 Cushing et al 54 Thiberge et al 89 Fujikawa et al 48 Bamba et al 88 Zhang et al 52 Cravo et al 93 Yes Atlan et al 53 Spooren et al 94 Celentano et al 95 Dedhia et al 96 Labarthe et al 97 the 'Timed Get Up-and-Go' test, the 7-min walk test and the 'Short Physical Performance Battery'. 62 These tests are commonly used in the elderly population to assess for muscle weakness and frailty, however, they are very rarely, if ever, used in the IBD population to assess for sarcopenia. Unfortunately, to date, there are no published normative (or cut-off) values for grip strength and functional testing in the IBD population, which certainly limits their use in these patients.…”

“…Assessment of muscle massDirect measurement of muscle mass is considered the gold standard in the diagnosis of sarcopenia. Going back to the initial definition of sarcopenia, which included a decrease in muscle mass (not based on muscle function), the majority of the literature in this field focuses on the use of cross-sectional imaging with CT scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as well as and BIA and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) to assess for sarcopenia 62. However, with all these modalities, there are no well-established cut-off values for normal muscle mass or function in patients with IBD.…”

Sarcopenia and Endocrine Ageing: Are They Related?

“…The chair stands test measures the strength of quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and triceps surae by calculating the time it takes a patient to get up from a sitting posture five times. On the other hand, the timed chair stand test determines how long it takes a patient to rise from a sitting posture in 30 seconds [ 13 ].…”