Abstract
BackgroundSarcopenia and knee osteoarthritis (OA) are two major risk factors for falls in older adults. The coexistence of these two conditions may exacerbate the risk of falls. This cross-sectional study aimed to test the hypothesis that older adults with coexisting sarcopenia and knee OA displayed an increased risk of falls experience.MethodsParticipants recruited from an orthopedic clinic were divided into four groups according to the presence of sarcopenia and radiographic knee OA: isolated sarcopenia, isolated knee OA, sarcopenia + knee OA, and control (i.e., non-sarcopenia with non-OA) groups. We used questionnaires to assess falls experience in the prior 12 months. We performed logistic regression analyses to evaluate the relationship between the four groups and falls experience.ResultsOf 291 participants (age: 60–90 years, 78.7% women) included in this study, 25 (8.6%) had sarcopenia + knee OA. Participants with sarcopenia + knee OA had 4.17 times (95% confidence interval: 0.84, 20.6) higher odds of recurrent falls (≥2 falls) than controls after adjustment for age, sex, and body mass index. The increased recurrent falls experience was not clearly confirmed in participants with isolated sarcopenia and isolated knee OA.ConclusionsPeople with coexisting of sarcopenia and knee OA displayed increased recurrent falls experience. This study suggests a new concept, “sarcopenic knee OA”, as a subgroup associated with higher risk of falls, which should be validated in future large cohort studies.Trial registration.Not applicable.
Highlights
Sarcopenia and knee osteoarthritis (OA) are two major risk factors for falls in older adults
This study included participants with age ≥ 60 years because knee pain is common in community-dwelling older adults in Japan [17] and is recommended criteria for sarcopenia diagnosis according to Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) [18]
Of 291 orthopedic clinic participants, we found that 8.6% participants had both sarcopenia and knee OA
Summary
Sarcopenia and knee osteoarthritis (OA) are two major risk factors for falls in older adults The coexistence of these two conditions may exacerbate the risk of falls. A potential coexisting condition for falls in persons with sarcopenia that was not adequately addressed in previous studies is knee osteoarthritis (OA). In addition to these common risk factors, knee joint instability and knee pain are potential risk factors for falls unique to individuals with knee OA [13]. These evidences lead to a new hypothesis that the coexistence of sarcopenia and knee OA, occurring in 1.6–5.3% of the community-dwelling elderly [14, 15], may exacerbate the risk of falls. Studies evaluated the falls experience in older adults with sarcopenia and knee OA separately [10,11,12, 16]
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