Can Timed Up and Go and 30-second Sit-to-Stand assessments be measured digitally?

The Timed Up and Go test

Timed Up and Go asks the person to stand from a chair, walk a set distance — conventionally three metres — turn, walk back and sit down again. The score is the time taken, in seconds.

Its appeal is that it packages several everyday demands into one short task: rising from sitting, walking, turning and sitting down. It is quick to administer, needs only a chair and a stopwatch, and is used widely across rehabilitation, older-adult care and research.

The 30-second Sit-to-Stand test

The 30-second Sit-to-Stand test counts how many times a person can rise fully from a chair and sit back down within 30 seconds, usually with arms folded across the chest.

It is a repetition count rather than a time, and reflects lower-limb strength and endurance more than gait. Like Timed Up and Go, it requires almost no equipment, which is why both tests are so widely embedded in practice.

What makes these tests suitable for digital capture

• The outcome is a single objective quantity — a time or a count — rather than a subjective rating.
• Both have a clear start and end that can be detected in a movement signal.
• Both involve large, distinctive movements that produce a strong sensor signature.
• Both are short, so a person can complete them unsupervised without fatigue becoming a confounder.
• Both are already familiar to clinicians, so a digitally captured score fits existing practice.

The measurement task is essentially event detection: identifying when the person stood, walked, turned and sat, or counting complete stand–sit cycles.

Published agreement with clinical-standard scoring

In MoveLab’s 2025 peer-reviewed study, both tests were captured through a browser-based application reading smartphone inertial sensors, and compared against clinical-standard assessment — manual timing for Timed Up and Go, and manual repetition counting for 30-second Sit-to-Stand.

Sit-to-Stand agreement was high, which is consistent with counting discrete repetitions being an easier task than timing a composite movement. Timed Up and Go reached the boundary of good agreement — it combines four different phases, and the exact moment a turn or a sit begins is less sharply defined in a sensor signal than a completed repetition.

Practical considerations for remote administration

1. 1Confirm the person can perform the test safely and unsupervised before sending it, and say clearly when they should not attempt it alone.
2. 2Specify the setup: a stable chair without wheels, a clear walking path, and adequate space to turn.
3. 3Keep chair height and layout as consistent as possible between assessments, because both influence the score.
4. 4Give unambiguous instructions on arm position and on what counts as a complete repetition.
5. 5Flag captures where the signal suggests the protocol was not followed rather than reporting them as valid.
6. 6Record the conditions alongside the score, so a later comparison is interpreted fairly.

Digitally captured scores are most valuable as repeated measures of the same person under the same protocol, where the comparison is with their own previous result.

What a digital score is not

• It is not a diagnosis, and it does not determine care on its own.
• It is not automatically comparable with a score obtained under a different protocol or setup.
• It does not remove the need for clinical judgement about whether a change is meaningful.
• It does not replace supervised assessment where safety is a concern.