Table 2.
National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) respondent clinical characteristics by difficulty chewing/swallowing (dysphagia)
| Difficulty chewing/swallowing | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Characteristic | Total (n = 4041) |
Yes (n = 428) |
No (n = 3613) |
p-value |
| Heart attack | 89 (1.7%) | 21 (4.7%) | 68 (1.4%) | <0.001 |
| Heart disease | 1007 (21.5%) | 150 (27.7%) | 857 (20.8%) | <0.001 |
| High blood pressure | 3037 (70.7%) | 334 (73.4%) | 2703 (70.4%) | 0.31 |
| Arthritis | 2968 (70.1%) | 363 (83.3%) | 2605 (68.6%) | <0.001 |
| Osteoporosis | 1371 (32.8%) | 192 (43.1%) | 1179 (31.7%) | <0.001 |
| Diabetes | 1219 (28.2%) | 153 (36.6%) | 1066 (27.3%) | 0.009 |
| Lung disease | 926 (21.9%) | 142 (30.9%) | 784 (20.8%) | <0.001 |
| Stroke | 103 (2.0%) | 20 (3.3%) | 83 (1.9%) | 0.09 |
| Dementia or Alzheimer’s | 441 (7.1%) | 87 (15.0%) | 354 (6.2%) | <0.001 |
| Cancer | 263 (6.5%) | 42 (11.3%) | 221 (6.0%) | 0.003 |
| Number of comorbidities* | 2.6 (0.03) | 3.2 (0.10) | 2.5 (0.03) | <0.001 |
| Fall/balance concern | 1971 (44.6%) | 324 (70.9%) | 1647 (41.6%) | <0.001 |
| Fall event in last year | 1401 (34.5%) | 212 (49.4%) | 1189 (32.8%) | <0.001 |
| Hip or other fracture | 225 (5.3%) | 38 (8.7%) | 187 (4.9%) | 0.01 |
| Medical device use | 1371 (26.1%) | 229 (44.8%) | 1142 (24.0%) | <0.001 |
| Sleep problems† | <0.001 | |||
| Rarely/never/not a problem | 1718 (44.0%) | 134 (32.7%) | 1584 (45.3%) | |
| 2+ nights a week for either | 1048 (26.2%) | 103 (23.7%) | 945 (26.5%) | |
| 2+ nights a week for both | 1264 (29.5%) | 190 (43.6%) | 1074 (27.9%) | |
| Pain in last month | 2357 (57.0%) | 331 (77.4%) | 2026 (54.7%) | <0.001 |
| Overall health | <0.001 | |||
| Fair/poor | 1006 (21.2%) | 194 (43.9%) | 812 (18.6%) | |
| Good to excellent | 3032 (78.8%) | 234 (56.1%) | 2798 (81.3%) | |
| Frailty level | <0.001 | |||
| Robust | 273 (6.5%) | 14 (2.7%) | 259 (6.9%) | |
| Prefrail | 3075 (79.2%) | 265 (64.0%) | 2810 (80.9%) | |
| Frail | 693 (14.3%) | 149 (33.2%) | 544 (12.2%) | |
| Peak (pulmonary) air flow* | 324.8 (3.89) | 280.5 (11.90) | 329.8 (3.89) | <0.001 |
| Short physical performance battery (SPPB) score | <0.001 | |||
| Very low | 918 (16.4%) | 155 (29.3%) | 763 (14.9%) | |
| Low | 919 (19.3%) | 93 (19.8%) | 826 (19.3%) | |
| Moderate | 1070 (29.1%) | 75 (20.4%) | 995 (30.1%) | |
| High | 747 (26.0%) | 38 (13.8%) | 709 (27.4%) | |
| Unintended weight loss | 676 (13.5%) | 120 (25.5%) | 556 (12.2%) | <0.001 |
| BMI category | 0.27 | |||
| Underweight | 150 (3.1%) | 22 (3.4%) | 128 (3.1%) | |
| Normal weight | 1252 (29.1%) | 142 (33.0%) | 1110 (28.6%) | |
| Overweight | 1426 (36.5%) | 140 (36.1%) | 1286 (36.6%) | |
| Obesity | 1153 (30.4%) | 110 (25.5%) | 1043 (31.0%) | |
| Number in social network* | 2.4 (0.04) | 2.3 (0.10) | 2.4 (0.04) | 0.35 |
*Reported as mean (SE)
†Sleep questions including “In the last month how often did it take more than 30 minutes to fall asleep?” and “In the last month on nights when you woke up before you wanted to get up, how often did you have trouble falling back asleep?” “Either” refers to respondent checking 2+ nights a week for only one of the questions, not both, and “both” means the subject check 2+ nights a week for both questions