Combined impact of physical frailty and social isolation on use of long-term care insurance in Japan: A longitudinal observational study.

OBJECTIVES: The combined effect of physical frailty and social isolation on the need to make use of long-term care insurance (LTCI) among older adults remains unknown. Thus this study investigates the association between physical frailty, social isolation, and the use of LTCI among older adults in Japan. STUDY DESIGN: This is a prospective observational study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Physical frailty is defined as limitations in strength, mobility, and physical activity, as well as exhaustion and weight loss. People with one or two indicators were categorized as pre-frail. Participants with a score of 1 point or more on the social isolation scale were defined as being socially isolated. Participants were followed up monthly for two years to check whether incident certification of care had been required. RESULTS: Data on 4576 community-dwelling independent older adults (mean age, 73.9 ± 5.5 years, 2032 men, 2544 women) were analyzed. A time-dependent Cox proportional hazards regression model showed that individuals with pre-frailty without social isolation (hazard ratio [HR] 2.02, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 1.40-2.91), pre-frailty with social isolation (HR 2.36, 95 % CI 1.62-3.43), frailty without social isolation (HR 2.98, 95 % CI 1.83-4.85), and frailty with social isolation (HR 3.19, 95 % CI 2.07-4.91) had significantly higher risks of needing to make use of LTCI than those with no frailty and without social isolation. This higher risk was non-significant among individuals with no frailty and social isolation (HR 1.28, 95 % CI 0.78-2.10). CONCLUSION: Combined frailty and social isolation among older adults should be addressed to prevent adverse health outcomes, including use of LTCI.

Physical Frailty and Future Costs of Long-Term Care in Older Adults: Results from the NCGG-SGS.

INTRODUCTION: Frailty is associated with adverse outcomes, but few studies have determined associations between the frailty phenotype and measures of healthcare burden, including long-term care insurance (LTCI) costs, in older community-dwelling populations. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine the association between frailty status and subsequent LTCI costs in Japanese community-dwelling older adults. METHODS: The prospective data were from a cohort study (National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology-Study of Geriatric Syndromes [NCGG-SGS]). The participants were community-dwelling older adults (mean age 71.8 years, women 50.7%) participating in an NCGG-SGS baseline examination held between August 2011 and February 2012 in Obu, Japan (N = 4,539). At baseline, we assessed the physical frailty phenotype using the Japanese version of the CHS criteria and categorized it as robust, pre-frail, or frail. We also ascertained care-needs certification and total costs using long-term care services in Japan's public LTCI system during the 29 months. RESULTS: During the 29-month follow-up period, 239 participants (5.3%) required the LTCI system's care-needs certification and 163 participants (3.6%) used LTCI services. Participants classified as frail (odds ratio 5.85, 95% confidence interval 3.54-9.66) or pre-frail (2.40, 1.58-3.66) at the baseline assessment had an increased risk of requiring care-needs certification compared with robust participants. The mean total costs for LTCI services during the 29 months were ¥6,434 ($63.1) for robust, ¥19,324 ($189.5) for pre-frail, and ¥147,718 ($1,448.2) for frail participants (1 US dollar = 102 Japanese yen in July 2014). There were significantly higher costs associated with advancing frailty status. Individual frailty components (slowness, weakness, exhaustion, low activity, and weight loss) were also associated with higher total costs for using LTCI services. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Frail community-dwelling older adults had a higher risk of requiring the LTCI system's care-needs certification and the subsequent total LTCI costs.

Social Frailty Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: Recommended Assessments and Implications.

Even though social factors that determine frailty in older people contribute to adverse health outcomes, there is little consensus in terms of the definition of social frailty. Therefore, in this article we reviewed literature on social frailty and attempted to define the term. Although we found that living alone, social participation, economic hardship, and other such factors are associated with a decline in activities of daily living and increased risk of disability, we have not reached an agreement on either the most effective methods of assessing social frailty or the most effective interventional approaches to address social frailty. Further investigations are needed to define social frailty and identify effective interventions to promote active aging by focusing on the social aspects in older adults with social frailty. It would be reasonable to think that this approach will also improve physical and cognitive frailty.

Impact of physical frailty on disability in community-dwelling older adults: a prospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between physical frailty and risk of disability, and to identify the component(s) of frailty with the most impact on disability in community-dwelling older adults. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: A Japanese community. PARTICIPANTS: 4341 older adults aged ≥65 living in the community participated in a baseline assessment from 2011 to 2012 and were followed for 2 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Care-needs certification in the national long-term care insurance (LTCI) system of Japan, type of physical frailty (robust, prefrail, frail) and subitems (slowness, weakness, exhaustion, low activity, weight loss), adjusted for several potential confounders such as demographic characteristics, analysed with Kaplan-Meier survival curves for incidence of disability by frailty phenotype. RESULTS: During the 2-year follow-up period, 168 participants (3.9%) began using the LTCI system for incidence of disability. Participants classified as frail (HR 4.65, 95% CI 2.63 to 8.22) or prefrail (2.52, 1.56 to 4.07) at the baseline assessment had an increased risk of disability incidence compared with robust participants. Analyses for subitems of frailty showed that slowness (2.32, 1.62 to 3.33), weakness (1.90, 1.35 to 2.68) and weight loss (1.61, 1.13 to 2.31) were related to increased risk of disability incidence. In stratified analyses, participants who were classified as frail and who had lower cognitive function had the highest percentage (30.3%) of disability incidence during the 2 years after baseline assessment. CONCLUSIONS: Physical frailty, even being prefrail, had a strong impact on the risk of future disability. Some components of frailty, such as slowness, weakness and weight loss, are strongly associated with incident disability in community-dwelling older adults.

Cognitive functioning and walking speed in older adults as predictors of limitations in self-reported instrumental activity of daily living: prospective findings from the Obu Study of Health Promotion for the Elderly.

Our aim was to determine whether baseline measures of cognitive functioning, walking speed, and depressive status are independent predictors of limitations in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) in older adults. The cross-sectional study involved 1329 community-dwelling adults, aged 75 years or older. At baseline, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Symbol Digit Substitution Test (SDST), Geriatric Depressive Scale (GDS), and a word list memory task were completed, and self-reported IADLs and walking speed were recorded. The longitudinal study involved 948 participants without baseline IADL limitation, which was assessed at baseline and 15-month follow up, using the three Kihon Checklist subitems. In cross-sectional analyses, participants with IADL limitation demonstrated greater GDS scores, slower walking speeds, and lower MMSE, word list memory task, and SDST (only for women) scores relative to those without IADL limitation. In the longitudinal analyses, baseline walking speed (men: OR 0.98; women: OR 0.97, p<0.05) and word list memory task scores (men: OR 0.84; women: OR 0.83, p<0.05) in both sexes and SDST scores in women (OR 0.96, p=0.04) were independent predictors of subsequent IADL limitation. Walking speed, memory, and processing speed may be independent predictors of IADL limitation in older adults.

Physical frailty predicts incident depressive symptoms in elderly people: prospective findings from the Obu Study of Health Promotion for the Elderly.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether frailty is an important and independent predictor of incident depressive symptoms in elderly people without depressive symptoms at baseline. DESIGN: Fifteen-month prospective study. SETTING: General community in Japan. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 3025 community-dwelling elderly people aged 65 years or over without depressive symptoms at baseline. MEASUREMENTS: The self-rated 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale was used to assess symptoms of depression with a score of 6 or more at baseline and 15-month follow-up. Participants underwent a structural interview designed to obtain demographic factors and frailty status, and completed cognitive testing with the Mini-Mental State Examination and physical performance testing with the Short Physical Performance Battery as potential predictors. RESULTS: At a 15-month follow-up survey, 226 participants (7.5%) reported the development of depressive symptoms. We found that frailty and poor self-rated general health (adjusted odds ratio 1.86, 95% confidence interval 1.30-2.66, P < .01) were independent predictors of incident depressive symptoms. The odds ratio for depressive symptoms in participants with frailty compared with robust participants was 1.86 (95% confidence interval 1.05-3.28, P = .03) after adjusting for demographic factors, self-rated general health, behavior, living arrangements, Mini-Mental State Examination, Short Physical Performance Battery, and Geriatric Depression Scale scores at baseline. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggested that frailty and poor self-rated general health were independent predictors of depressive symptoms in community-dwelling elderly people.

The combined status of physical performance and depressive symptoms is strongly associated with a history of falling in community-dwelling elderly: cross-sectional findings from the Obu Study of Health Promotion for the Elderly (OSHPE).

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the combined factors of physical performance, depressive symptoms and cognitive status are significantly associated with a history of falling in community-dwelling elderly. We performed a cross-sectional community-based survey, the OSHPE, from August 2011 to February 2012. In total, 5104 community-dwelling older adults aged 65 years and older (mean age 72.0) participated in the OSHPE. Participants underwent a grip strength (GS) test, chair stand test (CST), Timed Up & Go (TUG) test, Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Of the 4481 participants who met our requirements, 645 (14.4%) participants reported falling at least once in the past year. In a signal detection analysis (SDA), we found that the combination of GDS (≥6 points) and TUG (≥10.6 s) had the highest fall rate (36.4%), and the combination of GDS (<6 points) and CST (<11.1 s) had the lowest fall rate (11.7%). The highest fall rate group had a significantly higher odds ratio (OR) compared with the lowest fall rate group after adjusting for other potentially confounding variables [OR 3.12 (95% confidence interval (CI) 2.08-4.68) p<0.001]. The combination of depressive symptoms, TUG, and CST performance was strongly associated with a history of falling in community-dwelling elderly.