Incidence of Disability in Frail Older Persons With or Without Slow Walking Speed.
OBJECTIVE
To identify the differences of incidence of disability between frail older persons with and without slow walking speed.


METHODS
Prospective cohort study.


METHODS
Japanese community.


METHODS
A total of l4,081 older adults aged ≥65 years living in the community, participated in a baseline assessment and were followed for incidence of disability for 29.5 months.


METHODS
Care-needs certification in the national long-term care insurance system of Japan, physical frailty (slow walking speed, muscle weakness, exhaustion, low activity, weight loss), adjusted for several potential confounders such as demographic characteristics; Kaplan-Meier survival curves for incident disability by physical frailty with and without slow walking speed.


RESULTS
During the follow-up period, 198 participants (4.9%) were certified as requiring long-term care insurance in accordance with incident disability. Participants who had prefrailty without slow walking speed (hazard ratio 1.86, 95% confidence interval 1.19-2.92), prefrailty with slow walking speed (3.62, 2.19-5.96), frailty without slow walking speed (4.33, 2.00-9.39), and frailty with slow walking speed (4.68, 2.72-8.05) at the baseline assessment had an increased risk of incident disability compared with nonfrail participants. In stratified analyses, frail older men and frail participants with low cognitive performance had the highest risk of incidence of disability.


CONCLUSIONS
The presence of frailty or even prefrailty when older adults showed slow walking speed increased the risk of future disability in community-dwelling older adults.
Department of Preventive Gerontology, Center for Gerontology and Social Science, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan. Electronic address: shimada@ncgg.go.jp.
Hiroyuki
H
Shimada
Department of Preventive Gerontology, Center for Gerontology and Social Science, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan.
Hyuma
H
Makizako
Department of Preventive Gerontology, Center for Gerontology and Social Science, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan.
Takehiko
T
Doi
Department of Preventive Gerontology, Center for Gerontology and Social Science, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan.
Kota
K
Tsutsumimoto
National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Obu, Japan.
Takao
T
Suzuki
D000368:Aged; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D016330:Frail Elderly; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D057187:Independent Living; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D051346:Mobility Limitation; D015995:Prevalence; D011446:Prospective Studies; D016019:Survival Analysis; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology*
Frailty; activities of daily living; aged; gait; physical performance