Abstract
BACKGROUND: Studies assessing physical functioning with the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE) should be aware that the instrument may be age and culture insensitive. OBJECTIVES: To asses "classical" PASE scoring in a sample of aged (mean age 74) Mexican origin Latinos in the Southwestern United States and provide a new scoring algorithm. METHOD: Information from a cross sectional study of 2438 community-dwelling minority subjects who completed the PASE scale was scored with the classical and a new scoring approach to compare their similarity and predictive power on three items of functional ability. RESULTS: The classical and new scoring procedures for PASE items render different total scores. CONCLUSION: The classical approach for scoring PASE in aged minorities may fail to capture the age and culture insensitivity of the instrument. The new approach, or a derivation of it, should be used to compute the total PASE score for minority aged populations as further research continues.