Most of what a comprehensive geriatric assessment produces is a description. The five-times sit-to-stand test is one of the few things in it that produces a number, takes under a minute, needs no equipment beyond a chair without arms, and predicts falls and functional decline.
Ask the patient to fold their arms across their chest and stand up fully and sit down five times as quickly as they safely can, and time it. Do it at the same point in the consultation each time, with the same chair. Write the seconds in the notes. A patient who cannot complete five without using their arms has given you the answer without the stopwatch, and that fact belongs in the record too.
The value is the repetition rather than any single threshold. A number recorded at three consecutive visits shows a trajectory, which is what actually drives decisions about home support, rehabilitation and whether a medication review is urgent. It also gives the patient something concrete when they improve, which matters more for adherence to an exercise programme than any explanation of why exercise helps.
- Use a chair without arms and ask for arms folded across the chest.
- Record the time in seconds, or record that five could not be completed.
- Use the same chair and the same point in the consultation each time.
- Repeat at every review so there is a trajectory rather than a single value.
- Show the patient their own numbers when they improve — it is the most effective adherence tool in the clinic.
Why it matters
Comprehensive geriatric assessment mostly produces description, and this is one of the few parts of it that produces something you can compare across visits.
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