How Well Are You Ageing?
A free one-page scorecard. Five tests, ten minutes, at your kitchen table.
What's inside
- The five tests, with the exact instructions — balance, chair stand, walking pace, getting off the floor, and grip strength. Four need no equipment at all.
- The numbers for your age and sex — so you can see where you actually stand, instead of guessing.
- The three things that improve all five — and it's far less work than most people assume.
- A column for today and one for six months' time — because the direction you're moving matters more than any single score.
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I will not share your details with any third party
The grip tester I use: Amazon UK Grip Strength Tester. Any digital one will do — I'm not affiliated with this seller.
Hi, I'm Dr Eoghan Colgan
WE MEASURE BLOOD PRESSURE and glucose. ALMOST NOBODY MEASURES THIS.
We check blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar — the things that tell us what might kill us.
But almost nobody measures physical function. Your strength, your balance, and whether you'll still be getting off the floor unaided in twenty years' time.
It turns out you can measure it, in about ten minutes, at home. And these aren't internet tricks — grip strength and walking speed sit inside the formal medical definition of frailty, and walking speed has been called the sixth vital sign.
I'm an NHS doctor of 25 years. Medical school taught me nothing about longevity, so I look into it myself — and I test everything on myself first. For the record, I don't score full marks on all five either.
