Physical performance (pooled across unspecified instruments)

Method

Standardised mean difference in physical performance pooled across whichever objective tests the primary trials used — gait speed, Short Physical Performance Battery, timed up-and-go, chair-stand time — with no single test common to the analysis. Constituent tests listed on the edge.

The method is part of the endpoint identity. Studies measuring the same quantity by a different method are held as separate endpoints.

Notes

SIGN INVERSION HAZARD INSIDE ITS OWN CONSTRUCTION: it mixes tests scored in speed or points, where HIGHER is better, with tests scored in time, where LOWER is better. Competent meta-analysts flip the timed tests before pooling, but where the source does not state that it did, the pooled sign cannot be trusted and the edge must record whether the correction was made. Confused with gait speed, a single named test with a real unit (m/s) that has its own node, and with the pooled physical-function node, which is patient-REPORTED rather than performance-tested — self-report and observed performance dissociate, particularly in older adults.