Relationship between peripheral arterial disease and incident disability among elderly Japanese: the Tsurugaya project.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to investigate whether peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is predictive of disability and whether the relationship between PAD and disability can be fully explained by baseline physical functions.


METHODS
We followed for five years 783 Japanese aged 70 years or older without a disability at baseline in 2003. We defined participants certificed as requiring long-term care as having incident disability. The hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for incident disability were calculated using the Cox proportional hazards model.


RESULTS
After adjusting for possible confounders other than physical function, the HR of incident disability among participants with PAD was 1.86 (95%CI: 1.06 to 3.26).Although the risk was attenuated (HR=1.63, 95%CI: 0.92 to 2.86) after adding baseline physical function as a covariate, the HR was still high. Furthermore, the relation was not statistically significant, but the group with higher physical function and PAD also had a higher HR of incident disability than those who had higher physical function without PAD.


CONCLUSIONS
PAD is an important predictor of disability even if the level of baseline physical function is high.
Division of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health and Forensic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Japan. akemin@yahoo.co.jp
Akemi
A
Nitta
Atsushi
A
Hozawa
Shinichi
S
Kuriyama
Naoki
N
Nakaya
Kaori
K
Ohmori-Matsuda
Toshimasa
T
Sone
Masako
M
Kakizaki
Satoru
S
Ebihara
Masataka
M
Ichiki
Hiroyuki
H
Arai
Ichiro
I
Tsuji
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D058729:Peripheral Arterial Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models