European Geriatric Medicine · Dec 21, 2017
Association between frailty and a measure of cognition: a cross-sectional study on community-dwelling older adults
By Hsueh JT, Peng TC, Chen WL et al.
BACKGROUND: Frailty is a geriatric syndrome that is generally represented as a universal issue in the aging population and may lead to adverse health-related events. The most widely used definition of frailty was proposed by Fried et al., wherein frailty is characterized by low physical activity, involuntary weight loss, exhaustion, poor muscle strength, and slow gait speed. The concept of "cognitive frailty" (simultaneous occurrence of both cognitive impairment and physical frailty) has recently been proposed. The Alzheimer's Disease 8 (AD8) is a brief questionnaire used to differentiate normal aging from dementia. We hypothesized a positive correlation between frailty and AD8 scores in community-dwelling older adults. METHODS: Individuals over 65 years who visited a medical center in Taipei city during May, 2012 to April, 2013 for an annual check-up were eligible. The final sample comprised 205 older adults (average age = 75.5 ± 7.6 years). Frailty status was determined according to the Fried frailty criteria. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to estimate the odds of frailty among individuals with AD8 scores of 2 or more. RESULTS: After adjusting for age, gender and health-related behaviors, the odds ratio of frailty for individuals with AD8 scores ≥ 2 was 5.3 (p = 0.008). This positive relationship remained even after adjustment for additional correlates. CONCLUSION: The findings have important implications for the early identification of frailty risk, provided that longitudinal studies can identify the directionality of the relationship between AD8 scores and frailty.