Intra-Day Reliability and Sensitivity of Four Functional Ability Tests 1 in Older Females 2 3

4 Functional tests are commonly used to evaluate functional ability of older individuals, however, intra-day 5 reliability and sensitivity are required to enable informed decisions on whether repeated trials are 6 necessary and to ensure that the values obtained from a single session are a patient’s true score. The study 7 aimed to investigate the intra-day reliability and sensitivity of commonly used functional tests in older 8 individuals. Seventy one healthy older females (71.7 (7.3) years, 64.8 (10.2) kg, 1.58 (0.07) m) performed 9 the 6m maximum walking speed, timed 8-foot up-and-go, chair sit-and-reach, and back scratch tests three 10 times in one single session, with one minute between trials. Reliability was examined using intraclass 11 correlation coefficient (ICC) while sensitivity using typical error (TE) between all trials. All tests were 12 highly reliable (ICC range 0.89-0.99), indicating no need for a familiarization trial. TE between trials 2-1 13 were 0.06 ms-1, 0.42 s, 1.13 cm, 0.92 cm for the 6m maximum walking speed, timed 8-foot up-and-go, 14 chair sit-and-reach, and back scratch tests, respectively. Practitioners should perform two tests to examine 15 whether the difference between them is less than the TE reported here. These results should help 16 practitioners ensure that scores obtained from an individual from these functional tests are a true 17 reflection of their functional ability rather than measurement error. 18 19