Contribution of Frailty to Multimorbidity Patterns and Trajectories: Longitudinal Dynamic Cohort Study of Aging People.

BACKGROUND: Multimorbidity and frailty are characteristics of aging that need individualized evaluation, and there is a 2-way causal relationship between them. Thus, considering frailty in analyses of multimorbidity is important for tailoring social and health care to the specific needs of older people. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess how the inclusion of frailty contributes to identifying and characterizing multimorbidity patterns in people aged 65 years or older. METHODS: Longitudinal data were drawn from electronic health records through the SIDIAP (Sistema d'Informació pel Desenvolupament de la Investigació a l'Atenció Primària) primary care database for the population aged 65 years or older from 2010 to 2019 in Catalonia, Spain. Frailty and multimorbidity were measured annually using validated tools (eFRAGICAP, a cumulative deficit model; and Swedish National Study of Aging and Care in Kungsholmen [SNAC-K], respectively). Two sets of 11 multimorbidity patterns were obtained using fuzzy c-means. Both considered the chronic conditions of the participants. In addition, one set included age, and the other included frailty. Cox models were used to test their associations with death, nursing home admission, and home care need. Trajectories were defined as the evolution of the patterns over the follow-up period. RESULTS: The study included 1,456,052 unique participants (mean follow-up of 7.0 years). Most patterns were similar in both sets in terms of the most prevalent conditions. However, the patterns that considered frailty were better for identifying the population whose main conditions imposed limitations on daily life, with a higher prevalence of frail individuals in patterns like chronic ulcers &peripheral vascular. This set also included a dementia-specific pattern and showed a better fit with the risk of nursing home admission and home care need. On the other hand, the risk of death had a better fit with the set of patterns that did not include frailty. The change in patterns when considering frailty also led to a change in trajectories. On average, participants were in 1.8 patterns during their follow-up, while 45.1% (656,778/1,456,052) remained in the same pattern. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that frailty should be considered in addition to chronic diseases when studying multimorbidity patterns in older adults. Multimorbidity patterns and trajectories can help to identify patients with specific needs. The patterns that considered frailty were better for identifying the risk of certain age-related outcomes, such as nursing home admission or home care need, while those considering age were better for identifying the risk of death. Clinical and social intervention guidelines and resource planning can be tailored based on the prevalence of these patterns and trajectories.

Polypharmacy Patterns in Multimorbid Older People with Cardiovascular Disease: Longitudinal Study.

(1) Introduction: Cardiovascular disease is associated with high mortality, especially in older people. This study aimed to characterize the evolution of combined multimorbidity and polypharmacy patterns in older people with different cardiovascular disease profiles. (2) Material and methods: This longitudinal study drew data from the Information System for Research in Primary Care in people aged 65 to 99 years with profiles of cardiovascular multimorbidity. Combined patterns of multimorbidity and polypharmacy were analysed using fuzzy c-means clustering techniques and hidden Markov models. The prevalence, observed/expected ratio, and exclusivity of chronic diseases and/or groups of these with the corresponding medication were described. (3) Results: The study included 114,516 people, mostly men (59.6%) with a mean age of 78.8 years and a high prevalence of polypharmacy (83.5%). The following patterns were identified: Mental, behavioural, digestive and cerebrovascular; Neuropathy, autoimmune and musculoskeletal; Musculoskeletal, mental, behavioural, genitourinary, digestive and dermatological; Non-specific; Multisystemic; Respiratory, cardiovascular, behavioural and genitourinary; Diabetes and ischemic cardiopathy; and Cardiac. The prevalence of overrepresented health problems and drugs remained stable over the years, although by study end, cohort survivors had more polypharmacy and multimorbidity. Most people followed the same pattern over time; the most frequent transitions were from Non-specific to Mental, behavioural, digestive and cerebrovascular and from Musculoskeletal, mental, behavioural, genitourinary, digestive and dermatological to Non-specific. (4) Conclusions: Eight combined multimorbidity and polypharmacy patterns, differentiated by sex, remained stable over follow-up. Understanding the behaviour of different diseases and drugs can help design individualised interventions in populations with clinical complexity.