Abstract
Background: Frailty is an epidemic age-related syndrome addressing heavy burden to the healthcare system. Subject to the rarity, age-, and gender-specific prevalence of frailty and its prognosis among the longevous population remains under-investigated.Methods: Based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Study (CLHLS, 2008–2018), individuals aged ≥ 65 years having complete data of frailty were recruited. Modified Fried criteria (exhaustion, shrink, weakness, low mobility, and inactivity) were adopted to define pre-frailty (1–2 domains) and frailty (≥3 domains), respectively. The association between pre-frailty/frailty and adverse outcomes (frequent hospitalization, limited physical performance, cognitive decline, multimorbidity, and dependence) was analyzed using logistic regression models. The association between pre-frailty/frailty and mortality was analyzed using Cox proportional hazards models. Age- and gender-stratified analyses were performed.Results: Totally, 13,859 participants aged 85.8 ± 11.1 years, including 2,056 centenarians, were recruited. The overall prevalence of pre-frailty and frailty were 54.1 and 26.3%, respectively. Only 5.0% of centenarians were non-frailty whereas 59.9% of the young-old (65–79 years) showed pre-frailty. Both pre-frailty and frailty were associated with the increased risk of multiple adverse outcomes, such as incident limited physical performance, cognitive decline and dependence, respectively (P < 0.05). Frail males were more vulnerable to the risk of mortality (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.3, 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.1–2.6) compared with frail females (HR = 1.9, 95%CI, 1.7–2.1). The strongest association between frailty and mortality was observed among the young-old (HR = 3.6, 95%CI, 2.8–4.5). Exhaustion was the most common domain among patients with pre-frailty (74.8%) or frailty (83.2%), followed by shrink (32.3%) in pre-frailty and low mobility (83.0%) in frailty. Inactivity among females aged 65–79 years showed the strongest association with the risk of mortality (HR = 3.50, 95%CI, 2.52–4.87).Conclusion: A huge gap exists between longer life and healthy aging in China. According to the age- and gender-specific prevalence and prognosis of frailty, the strategy of frailty prevention and intervention should be further individualized.
Highlights
Frailty is a series of age-related clinical conditions showing the deterioration of strength and physiologic malfunction [1,2,3,4,5]
Till 2018, 67.4% of participants in Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Surveys (CLHLS) were people aged 80 years or older, and the CLHLS had interviewed over 20 thousand person-times of centenarian, nonagenarian and octogenarian, respectively [23]. Based on this precious cohort, the present study investigated the prevalence of pre-frailty and frailty among the communitydwelling population with advanced age
As to participants with pre-frailty, they were at high-risk of frailty, 1,524 (20.3%) and 1,420 (19.0%) pre-frail individuals were current smokers and drinkers, respectively
Summary
Frailty is a series of age-related clinical conditions showing the deterioration of strength and physiologic malfunction [1,2,3,4,5]. It is strongly associated with the susceptibility of stressors, manifested as the vulnerability to multiple diseases and the delayed recovery [1, 3, 4]. Previous studies reported the prevalence of frailty among the population aged 60 years or older as 4.0–59.1% in highincome countries [8] and 3.9–65.3% in low- and middle-income countries [9,10,11]. Age-, and gender-specific prevalence of frailty and its prognosis among the longevous population remains under-investigated
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
