Multimorbidity, Trauma Exposure, and Frailty of Older Adults in the Community.

Ioanna V Papathanasiou,Evangelos C Fradelos,Dimitrios Papagiannis,Anna Rammogianni,Konstantinos I Gourgoulianis,Foteini Malli,Dimitrios Mantzaris

doi:10.3389/fgene.2021.634742

Ioanna V Papathanasiou, Evangelos C Fradelos + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2021.634742

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the relation between multimorbidity, traumatic events and frailty among older adults in the community. The studied population consisted of 257 older people who were recipients of the services and active members of Open Care Centers for the Elderly (OCCE) of the Municipality of Grevena and meet a set of selection criteria. The collection of the data was carried out using a fully structured questionnaire, which consisted of two sections: a form of individual features and the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI). The sample consisted of 114 men (44.4%) and 143 women (55.6%) aged between 61 and 96 years with an average of 75.12 years. The results showed that the mean scores were 2.70 for the Physical Frailty (standard deviation = 2.16), 1.43 for the Psychological Frailty (standard deviation = 1.21), 1.32 for the Social Frailty (standard deviation = 0.64) and 5.44 for the total Frailty (standard deviation = 3.02). We took into account the cut-off point five of 54.1% (n = 139) in terms of the participants’ frailty. Physical, Psychological, and Total Frailty are related to (a) the presence of two or more chronic diseases or disorders, (b) the experience of a serious illness in the previous year, and (c) the experience of a serious illness of a loved one during the previous year. The outcomes helped to identify frailty syndrome in older people and the factors associated with it.

Highlights

European countries are among the countries in the world with the highest population of aging people according to epidemiological data (Kinsella and Philips, 2005)
Data from recent literature show that a common phenomenon observed in older adults and especially in those suffering from chronic diseases is the frailty syndrome, which affects their physical and mental health and their social life (Vardaki and Manolitsaki, 2011; Koutsonida et al, 2016)
The purpose of this paper was to study the relationship between chronic diseases, traumatic experiences and frailty in older people living in the community

Summary

Introduction

European countries are among the countries in the world with the highest population of aging people according to epidemiological data (Kinsella and Philips, 2005). The demography of Greece shows a simultaneous and constant increase in people who are aging and those with chronic diseases (Ntanasi et al, 2018). Data from recent literature show that a common phenomenon observed in older adults and especially in those suffering from chronic diseases is the frailty syndrome, which affects their physical and mental health and their social life (Vardaki and Manolitsaki, 2011; Koutsonida et al, 2016). The frailty syndrome has been defined several times by researchers; no common definition has prevailed worldwide (Chen et al, 2014). From Fried et al (2001), frailty has been defined as a biological syndrome that has detrimental effects on the body’s systems due to limited resistance to stressor factors. In the study by Conroy and Elliott (2017), frailty is a multidimensional geriatric syndrome with significant health effects

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