Prevalence of frailty among diabetic and non-diabetic elderly in a tertiary care hospital

 

Ananthakumar P K¹, Anu M^2*, Narahari M G³

 

Abstract              Background: The increase in life expectancy during the 20th century has been accompanied by an increase in the proportion and total number of people at the age above 90 and also a considerable number of centenarians. Clinician awareness of the Frailty syndrome, its biologic basis, and the increased risk for adverse outcomes can improve care for this most vulnerable subset of patients. If we are able to recognize and treat frailty in our clinical practice, it brings a newer perspective to geriatric medicine. This includes the study of the prevalence of frailty in elderly in the community and a specific care targeting this vulnerable population. This was a hospital based observational study and individuals more than 65 years were included. Physical frailty was defined in accordance with the frailty phenotype (Fried et al.2001) as a clinical syndrome in which the participant expressed three or more of the five criteria. Prevalence of frailty among elderly in the sample population was assessed. We also compared the prevalence of frailty between diabetic and non-diabetic groups. Frail subjects predominantly fell in the age group of 80 years and above. There was clustering of pre-frail subjects in the age group of 65 -69 years. The ratio of frail subjects - male: female ratio was 0.46:1 Proportion of study subjects with diabetes were more among frail than pre frail. But this association between diabetes and frailty was not statistically significant (p = 0.197). Frailty is prevalent in people aged more than 80 years and females.

Keywords: Frail, prefrail, Fried et al., Elderly, gait speed, Sarcopenia.