Mobility in Older Adults: A Comprehensive Framework

TLDR

Mobility is essential for active aging, linked to health and quality of life, yet research has largely been discipline‑specific and lacks a comprehensive portrayal of its broad definition across community environments. The article introduces a new theoretical framework for mobility to raise awareness of its complex influencing factors and to stimulate integrative interdisciplinary research. The framework depicts mobility through five determinant categories—cognitive, psychosocial, physical, environmental, and financial—augmented by crosscutting influences of gender, culture, and biography, with factor complexity growing as the mobility environment extends beyond the home. The framework shows that mobility impairments limit access to various life‑spaces and highlights interrelated determinants, implying that interdisciplinary research and more comprehensive interpretations are needed to develop complex strategies for mobility concerns.

Abstract

Mobility is fundamental to active aging and is intimately linked to health status and quality of life. Although there is widespread acceptance regarding the importance of mobility in older adults, there have been few attempts to comprehensively portray mobility, and research has to a large extent been discipline specific. In this article, a new theoretical framework for mobility is presented with the goals of raising awareness of the complexity of factors that influence mobility and stimulating new integrative and interdisciplinary research ideas. Mobility is broadly defined as the ability to move oneself (e.g., by walking, by using assistive devices, or by using transportation) within community environments that expand from one's home, to the neighborhood, and to regions beyond. The concept of mobility is portrayed through 5 fundamental categories of determinants (cognitive, psychosocial, physical, environmental, and financial), with gender, culture, and biography (personal life history) conceptualized as critical crosscutting influences. Each category of determinants consists of an increasing number of factors, demonstrating greater complexity, as the mobility environment expands farther from the home. The framework illustrates how mobility impairments can lead to limitations in accessing different life-spaces and stresses the associations among determinants that influence mobility. By bridging disciplines and representing mobility in an inclusive manner, the model suggests that research needs to be more interdisciplinary and current mobility findings should be interpreted more comprehensively, and new more complex strategies should be developed to address mobility concerns.