Simple handgrip test could help doctors detect early heart ageing in seniors

Ewe See Hooi (standing, left), director of echocardiography at the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS), and Angela Koh, director of the Cardiovascular Ageing and Longevity Programme at NHCS, demonstrating the use of advanced echocardiography techniques to assess the heart’s structure and function, particularly the left atrium and its interaction with the left ventricle.

Published Sep 28, 2026, 05:00 AM

Updated Sep 28, 2026, 05:00 AM

Reduced muscle strength and mass in elderly people are linked to impaired left atrial heart function, an early sign of heart failure.

The left atrium's role is crucial but often overlooked; weaker hand grip strength correlates with poor coordination between left atrium and ventricle.

Using hand grip tests to assess muscle health may help detect heart failure risk early in ageing populations, aiding timely intervention.

SINGAPORE – A simple squeeze of a handgrip could soon help doctors gauge how well an elderly person’s heart is ageing , long before any symptoms appear.

Weak grip strength in healthy seniors has been linked to early, hidden decline in the heart’s upper left chamber – the left atrium – according to new research by the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS).

The discovery could change how doctors screen for early heart disease.

Traditionally, they tend to check the lower left ventricle, which pumps blood to the entire body.

However, waiting for damage to show up in the left ventricle is often “too late”, said NHCS cardiologist Angela Koh.

“When we talk about managing heart disease, most of the problems occur at the left ventricle,” said Koh, a senior consultant with the Department of Cardiology at the centre.

The left side of the heart tends to “work harder” than the right side, dealing with much higher pressure and workload because it pumps oxygen-rich blood to the entire body, making it more vulnerable to strain and disease, she added.

But by the time the symptoms appear, the patients “would have come in with heart failure, abnormal heart rhythms, heart attacks or massive muscle damage”.

Koh also noted that while the left ventricle is usually diseased in an elderly patient with heart failure, the left atrium is normal.

“We did not really know why, so we needed to delve into this,” she said.

Koh and a team of researchers from NHCS enlisted 255 participants from the Cardiac Ageing Study, which looked at characteristics and influences of heart health among the elderly between September 2014 and December 2017.

The participants, whose mean age was 71, did not have heart issues, stroke or cancer. They were put through an MRI scan, clinical data questionnaires and skeletal muscle assessment within a day.

About 44 per cent of the participants were women.

The researchers discovered that early warning signs showed up in the left atrium long before the left ventricle fails.

Loss of muscle mass and strength was linked to reduced heart function in the left atrium, rather than the left ventricle.

“The left atrium is actually the one that pumps oxygen-rich blood across to the left ventricle. This is frequently ignored but a lot of ‘secrets’ are actually held in the left atrium,” Koh said.

These “secrets” include how the left atrium manages oxygen-rich blood, stores hormones, and hides structural features that could be mistaken for serious medical problems in scans.

“What we did was look at the relationship between muscle strength and muscle mass in relation to heart function. Using the handgrip test, we found that weaker handgrip strength was associated with reduced heart function in the left atrium,” Koh said.

The test measures upper body muscle strength and serves as a vital indicator of overall physical health and functional decline in older adults.

“Those participants with weaker grip strength or lower lean muscle mass had larger left atrium to left ventricle volume ratio. This showed that there was less effective coordination between the two heart chambers,” she said.

Cardiologist Louis Teo, director of the Heart Failure Programme at NHCS, noted that while there has been limited discussion on the left atrium, it is central to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction – a condition often driven by “stiff heart syndrome” in older adults.

Cardiologist Louis Teo (left), director of the Heart Failure Programme at NHCS, talking about how understanding early changes in the ageing heart can help identify individuals at risk of heart failure sooner, with implications for heart failure prevention. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY

Cardiologist Louis Teo (left), director of the Heart Failure Programme at NHCS, talking about how understanding early changes in the ageing heart can help identify individuals at risk of heart failure sooner, with implications for heart failure prevention.

“An abnormal left atrium is what we look for in this group of heart failure patients,” said Teo, who is a consulting doctor for some of the participants.

The study was published in Communications Medicine, a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal, on Aug 22 .

With Singapore now a super-aged society, where more than 21 per cent of its population are aged 65 and above, there is an increasing awareness of tracking muscle shrinkage, or sarcopenia, among the elderly.

Teo said: “From what we have learnt from this study, if we are able to use the handgrip test and look at the patients’ lean muscle mass, this test would be simple enough for us to detect those patients at risk within the community.”

Heart/Cardiac diseases

新加坡国家心脏中心 (NHCS) 超声心动图主任 Ewe See Hooi（站立者，左）和 NHCS 心血管老化和长寿计划主任 Angela Koh 正在演示使用先进的超声心动图技术来评估心脏的结构和功能，特别是左心房及其与左心室的相互作用。

发布于 2026 年 9 月 28 日上午 5:00

更新于2026年9月28日上午5:00

老年人肌肉力量和质量下降与左心房功能受损有关，这是心力衰竭的早期征兆。

左心房的作用至关重要，但常常被忽视；手部握力较弱与左心房和左心室之间的协调性差有关。

利用握力测试评估肌肉健康状况，有助于及早发现老年人群的心力衰竭风险，从而有助于及时干预。

新加坡——只需简单地握紧一下手柄，医生就能很快评估老年人的心脏老化程度，甚至在任何症状出现之前就能进行评估。

新加坡国家心脏中心 (NHCS) 的一项新研究表明，健康老年人的握力较弱与心脏左上腔（左心房）的早期隐性衰退有关。

这一发现可能会改变医生筛查早期心脏病的方式。

传统上，他们倾向于检查左心室下部，该心室负责将血液泵送到全身。

然而，NHCS心脏病专家Angela Koh表示，等到左心室出现损伤往往“为时已晚”。

“当我们谈到心脏病的治疗时，大多数问题都发生在左心室，”该中心心脏病科高级顾问 Koh 说。

她补充说，心脏左侧往往比右侧“工作更努力”，因为它要承受更高的压力和工作负荷，因为它要将富氧血液泵送到全身，这使得它更容易受到损伤和疾病的影响。

但等到出现症状时，患者“可能已经出现心力衰竭、心律失常、心脏病发作或严重的肌肉损伤”。

Koh 还指出，虽然老年心力衰竭患者的左心室通常有病变，但左心房是正常的。

“我们当时并不清楚原因，所以我们需要深入研究一下，”她说。

Koh 和来自 NHCS 的一个研究团队招募了 255 名来自心脏老化研究的参与者，该研究调查了 2014 年 9 月至 2017 年 12 月期间老年人心脏健康的特征和影响因素。

参与者的平均年龄为71岁，均无心脏疾病、中风或癌症病史。他们在一天之内接受了核磁共振扫描、临床数据问卷调查和骨骼肌评估。

参与者中约有 44% 为女性。

研究人员发现，在左心室衰竭之前很久，左心房就出现了早期预警信号。

肌肉质量和力量的丧失与左心房心脏功能下降有关，而不是与左心室心脏功能下降有关。

“左心房实际上是将富氧血液泵送到左心室的。这一点经常被忽视，但左心房实际上蕴藏着许多‘秘密’，” Koh 说。

这些“秘密”包括左心房如何管理富氧血液、储存激素，以及隐藏在扫描中可能被误认为是严重疾病的结构特征。

Koh表示：“我们研究了肌肉力量和肌肉质量与心脏功能之间的关系。通过握力测试，我们发现握力较弱与左心房心脏功能下降有关。”

该测试用于测量上半身肌肉力量，是衡量老年人整体身体健康状况和功能衰退的重要指标。

“握力较弱或瘦肌肉量较低的参与者，其左心房与左心室容积比更大。这表明两个心腔之间的协调性较差，”她说道。

国家心脏中心 (NHCS) 心力衰竭项目主任、心脏病专家 Louis Teo 指出，虽然对左心房的讨论有限，但它是射血分数保留型心力衰竭的核心——这种情况通常是由老年人的“心脏僵硬综合征”引起的。

新加坡国立心脏中心（NHCS）心力衰竭项目主任、心脏病专家路易·张（左）正在讲解，了解衰老心脏的早期变化如何有助于尽早识别心力衰竭高危人群，这对预防心力衰竭具有重要意义。（海峡时报摄影：金泰）

心脏病专家 Louis Teo（左），NHCS 心力衰竭项目主任，正在谈论了解衰老心脏的早期变化如何能帮助更早地识别有心力衰竭风险的个体，这对预防心力衰竭具有重要意义。

“对于这组心力衰竭患者，我们寻找的是左心房异常，” Teo说道，他是部分参与者的咨询医生。

该研究于 8 月 22 日发表在同行评审的开放获取科学期刊《通讯医学》上。

新加坡如今已步入超老龄化社会，65 岁及以上的人口占总人口的 21% 以上，因此人们越来越意识到要关注老年人的肌肉萎缩或肌少症。

Teo表示：“根据我们从这项研究中了解到的情况，如果我们能够使用握力测试并观察患者的瘦肌肉量，那么这项测试就足够简单，可以帮助我们在社区中发现那些有风险的患者。”

心脏/心脏疾病