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Are physically frail older persons more at risk of adverse outcomes if they also suffer from cognitive, social, and psychological frailty?

ABSTRACT: Frailty is considered a predictor for negative outcomes such as disability, decreased quality of life, and hospital admission. Frailty measures have been developed that include different dimensions. We examined whether people who are physically frail are more at risk for negative outcomes of frailty if they also suffer from psychological, cognitive, or social frailty. Frailty was measured at baseline by means of the Groningen Frailty Indicator (GFI), which comprises a physical, cognitive, social, and psychological dimension. Only frail persons were included in the study (GFI ≥ 5) that, in addition, had to be frail in the physical dimension (i.e., ≥1 on this dimension). IADL disability and quality of life were measured at baseline and at 12 months. Hospital admission was assessed during this period. In this, physically frail sample effects of the other three frailty dimensions were studied in regression models. The sample (n = 334, mean age 78.1, and range 70-92) included 40.1 % frail men and 59.9 % frail women. Overall, no additional effects for the cognitive, social, or psychosocial dimensions were found: other frailty dimensions did not have an additional impact on disability, quality of life, or hospital admission in people who already suffered from physical frailty. Higher scores of physical frailty were significantly related to IADL disability (p < 0.05) and hospital admission (p < 0.05). Additional analysis showed that the physical frailty score predicted IADL disability and hospital admission better than the GFI overall score. Results of this study suggest that persons, who are physically frail, according to the GFI, are not more at risk for negative outcomes of frailty (i.e., IADL disability, decreased quality of life, and hospital admission) if they in addition suffer from cognitive, social, or psychological frailty. In addition, for the prediction of IADL disability or hospital admission, the focus for screening should be on the physical frailty score instead of the GFI overall score including different dimensions.

SUBMITTER: Ament BHL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5549203 | biostudies-other | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:Higher levels of frailty result in higher risks of adverse frailty outcomes such as hospitalisation and mortality. There are, however, indications that more factors than solely frailty play a role in the development of these outcomes. The presence of resources, e.g. sufficient income and good self-management abilities, might slow down the pathway from level of frailty to adverse outcomes (e.g. mortality). In the present paper we studied whether resources (i.e. educational level, income, availability of informal care, living situation, sense of mastery and self-management abilities) moderate the impact of the level of frailty on the adverse outcomes mortality, hospitalisation and the development of disability over a two-year period.Longitudinal data on a sample of 2420 community-dwelling pre-frail and frail older people were collected. Participants filled out a questionnaire every six months, including measures of frailty, resources and outcomes. To study the moderating effects of the selected resources their interaction effects with levels of frailty on outcomes were studied by means of multiple logistics and linear regression models.Frail older participants had increased odds of mortality and hospitalisation, and had more deteriorating disability scores compared to their pre-frail counterparts. No moderating effects of the studied resources were found for the outcomes mortality and hospitalisation. Only for the outcome disability statistically significant moderating effects were present for the resources income and living situation, yet these effects were in the opposite direction to what we expected. Overall, the studied resources showed hardly any statistically significant moderating effects and the directions of the trends were inconsistent.Frail participants were more at risk of mortality, hospitalisation, and an increase in disability. However, we were unable to demonstrate a clear moderating effect of the studied resources on the adverse outcomes associated with frailty (among pre-frail and frail participants). More research is needed to increase insight into the role of moderating factors. Other resources or outcome measures should be considered.

Project description:Frailty management focuses on optimizing the physical and psychological functioning of older people with frail health through early risk identification and intervention in primary care. Such care programs demand a joint effort by primary care professionals and older persons, one in which professionals are expected to promote or facilitate self-management practices and older persons are expected to adhere to the professional advice. It is known that patients and professionals hold different perspectives on frailty, but we know little about how this may affect their cooperation in frailty management. In this article, we therefore study how different perspectives of older persons and their primary care professionals play a role frailty management in practice. Nine cases of frailty management were reconstructed through semi-structured interviews with older persons, their family doctor and practice nurse. Drawing from literature on managing complex problems, we analyzed how "factual" and "normative" orientations played a role in their perspectives. We observe that the perspectives of care professionals and older persons on frailty management were substantially different. Both actors "manage" frailty, but they focus on different aspects of frailty and interestingly, care professionals' rationale is future-oriented whereas older person's rationale past-oriented. Primary care professionals employed practices to manage the medical and social factors of frailty in order to prevent future loss. Older persons employed practices to deal with the psychological, emotional and social aspects of the different types of loss they already experienced, in order to reconcile with loss from the past in the present. These findings raise fundamental questions regarding the different perceptions of and priorities around not only care for frail older people in general, but also implied professional-patient relations and the value of a risk-management approach to care for older people with frail health. The distinction between these perspectives could help care professionals to better respond to older patients' preferences and it could empower older persons to voice preferences and priorities that might not fit within the proposed care program.

Project description:BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE:Current preoperative assessment tools such as the American College of Surgeons Surgical Risk Calculator (ACS Calculator) are suboptimal for evaluating older adults. The objective was to evaluate and compare the performance of the ACS Calculator for predicting risk of serious postoperative complications with the addition of self-reported physical function versus a frailty score. DESIGN:Prospective cohort. SETTING:Two tertiary care academic medical centers in Massachusetts. PARTICIPANTS:Individuals aged 65 and older undergoing any surgery with a risk of serious complication of 5% or greater (N = 403). MEASUREMENTS:We measured self-reported physical function using the Late-Life Function and Disability Instrument (LLFDI FUNCTION) and frailty phenotype (FP), which has a score ranging from 0 to 5 based on slow gait speed, weak handgrip, exhaustion, weight loss, or low activity. Using c-statistic and net classification improvement (NRI), we then analyzed capability of LLFDI-FUNCTION versus FP to improve the ACS Calculator for predicting an adverse postoperative course (serious complication, discharge to nursing home, readmission, death within 30 days of surgery). Increase in c-statistic and net reclassification improvement (NRI) for LLFDI-FUNCTION versus FP in addition to the ACS Calculator for predicting an adverse postoperative course (serious complication, discharge to nursing home, readmission, death within 30 days of surgery) RESULTS: Over 30 days, 26% of participants developed an adverse postoperative course. The increase in c-statistic for the ACS Calculator (baseline value 0.645) was slightly greater with LLFDI-FUNCTION (0.076) than with FP (0.058), with a bootstrapped difference in c-statistic of 0.005 (95% confidence interval = 0.002-0.007). NRI was also better with LLFDI-FUNCTION. CONCLUSION:The LLFDI-FUNCTION predicted postoperative complications slightly better than the FP. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings and validate the use of the LLFDI-FUNCTION with the ACS Calculator for preoperative assessments of older adults.

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Are physically frail older persons more at risk of adverse outcomes if they also suffer from cognitive, social, and psychological frailty?

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