This estimates how far a healthy person of a given age, height, weight, and sex should be able to walk in six minutes, so an actual walk-test result can be compared against an expected norm.
Height in cm, weight in kg, age in years; result in meters.
Deconditioning, cardiac limitation, peripheral artery disease, musculoskeletal issues, and motivation or effort can all lower the result independent of lung function.
Functional capacity assessment in COPD, pulmonary hypertension, and heart failure, and to evaluate progress before and after pulmonary rehabilitation.
From regression equations (Enright and Sherrill) using age, height, weight, and sex. The measured distance is compared against this predicted value and its lower limit of normal.
Improvements of roughly 25–35 meters are often considered meaningful, though the threshold varies by population and study.