Abstract
BackgroundFrailty, which is defined as aging-related multisystem impairments, can lead to adverse health outcomes. However, evidence for such a connection in Chinese older adults remains lacking. This study examined the association between frailty and future falls and disability among community-dwelling Chinese older adults.MethodsData were obtained from the 2011 and 2015 waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Participants were aged 60 years and above at baseline in 2011 and completed the follow-up survey in 2015. Outcome measures were future falls, incident disability in activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and worsening performance of ADLs and IADLs. A multivariate logistic regression was conducted to examine the association between frailty phenotype and falls, incident disability, and worsening disability during a four-year period.ResultsWe found that frail participants were at increased risk at follow-up for: falls (OR 1.54, 95% CI, 1.14–2.08); developing new ADL difficulties (OR 4.10, 95% CI, 2.79–6.03) and IADL difficulties (OR 3.06, 95% CI, 2.03–4.61); and worsening ADLs performance (OR 2.27, 95% CI, 1.27–4.06), after adjusting for potential confounders. Prefrailty was also significantly associated with future falls, incident disability in ADLs and IADLs, but with a lower magnitude of effect.ConclusionsFrailty phenotype is an independent predictor of future falls, incident disability, and worsening performance in ADLs among Chinese older adults. The association suggests the need to pay special attention in caring for frail and prefrail elders and improving individuals’ frailty status.
Highlights
Frailty, which is defined as aging-related multisystem impairments, can lead to adverse health outcomes
The distribution of demographic characteristics was similar among the participants included in the analyses of incident Activities of daily living (ADL) disability and Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) disability
The frail proportion of the participants in the worsening disability analysis was approximately three times higher than that among participants in the incident disability analysis
Summary
Frailty, which is defined as aging-related multisystem impairments, can lead to adverse health outcomes. Evidence for such a connection in Chinese older adults remains lacking. This study examined the association between frailty and future falls and disability among community-dwelling Chinese older adults. Frailty, defined as the presence of multisystem impairment and vulnerability [1, 2], can result in decreased resilience to stressor events [3, 4], thereby increasing the risks for multiple adverse health outcomes, including falls [5], fractures [6], disability, morbidity [7, 8], and mortality [7, 9]. There has only been cross-sectional evidence suggesting the association between frailty and disability among Chinese older adults [3, 21, 22]
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