Background/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of frailty and to investigate the relationship between frailty with cognitive function variables of elderly peoples.
Methods: The study was the cross sectional design and we analyzed 278 subjects age =60 years in the urban area of Jakarta, Indonesia. All subjects underwent a standardized structural clinical examination and assessment including medical history, physical examination and a comprehensive cognitive assessment along with routine blood tests for APOE e4 genetic assessments. Cognitive assessments were conducted using, Mini Mental State Examination, Verbal Fluency, Boston Naming Test, Word List Memory Immediate Recall. Olfactory test was performed using ten odours commonly found in Indonesia. For the assessment of frailty, the Frailty Instrument for Primary Care of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe was used.
Results: The prevalence of frailty, pre-frail and robust among elderly in this study was 28.8%, 40.6% and 30.6% consecutively. Adjusting for confounding factors, subjects with naming impairment were at the biggest risk to experience frail (OR: 4.55, 95% CI: 1.98-10.42). Furthermore, there were 3 variables which are frail risks, such as global cognitive impairment (OR: 2.28, 95% CI: 1.20-4.33), verbal fluency impairment (OR: 2.28, 95% CI: 1.17-4.46) and Word List Memory Immediate Recall (WLM IR) impairment (OR: 2.85, 95% CI: 1.38-5.87).
Conclusion: The cognitively impaired group were more frail than those who have normal cognition, four cognitive function variables were related significantly with frailty. One of the language functions especially naming was the greatest influence factor to frailty in urban elderly peoples in Jakarta, Indonesia. |