The purpose of the present study was to clarify the characteristics of frailty at an early stage (prefrailty) in a healthy elderly Japanese population.
The participants were 620 healthy older adults (age range 60-89 years) who were current students or graduates of a community college for older adults in Japan. All participants were evaluated using the Kihon Checklist, a tool developed to screen for frailty in Japan. The participants were categorized by the Fried criteria (lost weight, handgrip strength, walking speed, exhaustion, physical activity) into either a prefrailty (1-2 criteria) or a non-frailty (0 criterion) group.
In the logistic regression model for the prevalence of prefrailty, significant and independent determinants were chronic constipation (odds ratio [OR] 2.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.15-3.90, P = 0.016), occurrence of incontinence (OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.39-2.82, P < 0.001), unable to climb stairs (OR 3.0, 95% CI 1.26-7.02, P = 0.013), dry mouth (OR 1.5, 95% CI 1.04-2.22, P = 0.029), a lack of fulfillment (OR 3.2, 95% CI 1.26-7.93, P = 0.015), found easy tasks difficult (OR 2.8, 95% CI 1.30-5.85, P = 0.008) and felt helpless (OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.02-4.39, P = 0.044).
These results suggest that the appearance of autonomic failure, oral malfunction and some psychological factors in relation to depressed mood, but not anthropometric measurements, are characteristic of prefrailty. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2016; ••: ••-••.
Geriatrics & gerontology international. 2016 Jan 09 [Epub ahead of print]
Eiji Matsushita, Kiwako Okada, Yui Ito, Shosuke Satake, Nariaki Shiraishi, Takahisa Hirose, Masafumi Kuzuya
School of Nutritional Sciences, Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences, Nisshin, Japan., Section of Frailty Prevention, Department of Frailty Research, Center for Gerontology and Social Science, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan., Department of Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health Science, Nihon Fukushi University, Handa, Japan., Department of Comprehensive Community Medical Cooperation Center, Nagoya University Hospital, Nagoya, Japan., Department of Community Healthcare and Geriatrics, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan.