An Outpatient-based Survey on the Recognition of Locomotive Syndrome in Japan: The Results of three Years of Surveys

Background: In 2007, the Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) proposed the term locomotive syndrome (LS) and the Japan Locomo Challenge Promotion Conference (JLCPC) began to carry out continuous campaigns to increase the LS recognition.

LS awareness and prevention activities have been considered to be critical health promotion activities in the orthopedic field. The JLCPC surveyed the LS recognition rate with an Internet-based questionnaire since 2012. However, there have not been any outpatient cohort studies. Thus, since 2014, we have surveyed the outpatients who were treated at Juntendo University Hospital, Tokyo.

Methods: To investigate LS recognition, we conducted an annual questionnaire survey of the approximately 1000 orthopedic outpatients who were treated each year at Juntendo University Hospital (Tokyo, Japan) from March to June (a 3-month period) in the 3 years from 2013 to 2015.

Results: We created three classifications of LS recognition: “Known”, “Heard of” and “Unknown.” The results of the survey revealed that the LS recognition rate was 24.6% in 2013, 26.4% in 2014 and 27.9% in 2015. The outpatient survey results indicated that there has been a stable increase in the LS recognition rate over the past 3 years.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that the LS recognition rate in 2015 was 27.9%, which amounts to a 3.3% increase in comparison to the in 2013 survey. We therefore consider that our outpatient-based survey has been a health promotion activity that has helped to promote a better understanding of the effects of the promotion of LS awareness and trends in awareness promotion activities.