Senior Fitness Test in the Assessment of Functional Fitness in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease at Different Levels of Physical Activity

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a decline in functional capacity and increasing limitations in daily activities. Clinical assessment tools provide valuable information on symptom severity but do not fully capture functional capacity. The aim of this study was to determine the usefulness of the Senior Fitness Test (SFT) for assessing functional capacity in patients with PD, depending on met (group A) or did not meet (group B) health-promoting physical activity (PA) recommendations. The study included 74 patients with idiopathic PD classified as Hoehn and Yahr stage II. PA was assessed using ActiGraph GT3X+ triaxial accelerometer and activity diaries, functional capacity using SFT, and symptom severity by MDS-UPDRS scale. Group A achieved significantly better results in all SFT components and had lower MDS-UPDRS scores than group B. The synthetic functional index was higher in the A group (1.28 ± 2.25 vs. -0.64 ± 2.28; p < 0.001), whereas the total MDS-UPDRS score was lower (31.09 ± 4.97 vs. 34.99 ± 5.28; p = 0.022). The results indicate that the SFT may be a useful and practical tool to complement the clinical assessment of patients with PD and may support more individualized rehabilitation planning and monitoring.