Excess mortality in depressive and anxiety disorders: The Lifelines Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: To examine the mortality risk of current and life-time depressive as well as anxiety disorders, whether this risk is moderated by sex or age, and whether this risk can be explained by lifestyle and/or somatic health status. METHODS: A cohort study (Lifelines) including 141,377 participants (18-93 years) which were followed-up regarding mortality for 8.6 years (range 3.0-13.7). Baseline depressive and anxiety disorders according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition criteria were assessed with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview and lifetime diagnoses by self-report. All-cause mortality was retrieved from Statistics Netherlands. Cox-regression was applied to calculate proportional hazard ratios, adjusted for lifestyle (physical activity, alcohol use, smoking, and body mass index) and somatic health status (multimorbidity and frailty) in different models. RESULTS: The mortality rate of depressive and anxiety disorders was conditional upon age but not on sex. Only in people below 60 years, current depressive and anxiety disorders were associated with mortality. Only depressive disorder and panic disorder independently predicted mortality when all mental disorders were included simultaneously in one overall model (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.18 [95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.56-3.05], p < 0.001 and HR = 2.39 [95% CI: 1.15-4.98], p = 0.020). Life-time depressive and anxiety disorders, however, were independent of each other associated with mortality. Associations hardly changed when adjusted for lifestyle characteristics but decreased substantially when adjusted for somatic health status (in particular physical frailty). CONCLUSIONS: In particular, depressive disorder is associated with excess mortality in people below 60 years, independent of their lifestyle. This effect seems partly explained by multimorbidity and frailty, which suggest that chronic disease management of depression-associated somatic morbidity needs to be (further) improved.

Physical Frailty: ICFSR International Clinical Practice Guidelines for Identification and Management.

OBJECTIVE: The task force of the International Conference of Frailty and Sarcopenia Research (ICFSR) developed these clinical practice guidelines to overview the current evidence-base and to provide recommendations for the identification and management of frailty in older adults. METHODS: These recommendations were formed using the GRADE approach, which ranked the strength and certainty (quality) of the supporting evidence behind each recommendation. Where the evidence-base was limited or of low quality, Consensus Based Recommendations (CBRs) were formulated. The recommendations focus on the clinical and practical aspects of care for older people with frailty, and promote person-centred care. Recommendations for Screening and Assessment: The task force recommends that health practitioners case identify/screen all older adults for frailty using a validated instrument suitable for the specific setting or context (strong recommendation). Ideally, the screening instrument should exclude disability as part of the screening process. For individuals screened as positive for frailty, a more comprehensive clinical assessment should be performed to identify signs and underlying mechanisms of frailty (strong recommendation). Recommendations for Management: A comprehensive care plan for frailty should address polypharmacy (whether rational or nonrational), the management of sarcopenia, the treatable causes of weight loss, and the causes of exhaustion (depression, anaemia, hypotension, hypothyroidism, and B12 deficiency) (strong recommendation). All persons with frailty should receive social support as needed to address unmet needs and encourage adherence to a comprehensive care plan (strong recommendation). First-line therapy for the management of frailty should include a multi-component physical activity programme with a resistance-based training component (strong recommendation). Protein/caloric supplementation is recommended when weight loss or undernutrition are present (conditional recommendation). No recommendation was given for systematic additional therapies such as cognitive therapy, problem-solving therapy, vitamin D supplementation, and hormone-based treatment. Pharmacological treatment as presently available is not recommended therapy for the treatment of frailty.

Malnutrition Screening and Assessment in Hospitalised Older People: a Review.

Malnutrition (undernutrition) remains one of the most serious health problems for older people worldwide. Many factors contribute to malnutrition in older people, including: loss of appetite, polypharmacy, dementia, frailty, poor dentition, swallowing difficulties, social isolation, and poverty. Malnutrition is common in the hospital setting, yet often remains undetected by medical staff. The objective of this review is to compare the validity and reliability of Nutritional Screening Tools (NSTs) for older adults in the hospital setting. We also provide an overview of the various nutritional screening and assessment tools used to identify malnutrition in hospitalised older adults. These include: Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), MNA-short form (MNA-SF), Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST), Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire (SNAQ), Geriatric Nutrition Risk Index (GNRI) and anthropometric measurements. The prevalence and outcomes of malnutrition in hospitalised older adults are also addressed.