Table 6.
Association of Frailty With 2-Year Incident Disability in Activities of Daily Livinga Among Participants Classified as Robust, Prefrail, and Frail Using the Frailty Phenotype Scale, Cardiovascular Health Study (1989–1993) and Health and Retirement Study (2006–2009), United States
| Frailty Score | Cardiovascular Health Study (n = 3,281) | Health and Retirement Study (n = 5,949) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demographic-Adjustedb | Fully Adjustedc | Demographic-Adjustedb | Fully Adjustedd | |||||
| RR | 95% CI | RR | 95% CI | RR | 95% CI | RR | 95% CI | |
| Robuste | ||||||||
| Continuous frailty score | 1.85 | 1.42, 2.42 | 1.57 | 1.19, 2.07 | 1.55 | 1.30, 1.86 | 1.34 | 1.08, 1.66 |
| Quintilef | ||||||||
| 2 | 1.35 | 0.94, 1.94 | 1.30 | 0.88, 1.93 | 1.25 | 0.91, 1.71 | 1.13 | 0.78, 1.64 |
| 3 | 1.62 | 1.09, 2.40 | 1.15 | 0.74, 1.79 | 1.78 | 1.29, 2.47 | 1.40 | 0.96, 2.05 |
| 4 and 5 | 4.15 | 2.75, 6.26 | 2.58 | 1.65, 4.05 | 3.32 | 2.22, 4.97 | 2.56 | 1.58, 4.17 |
| Prefraile | ||||||||
| Continuous frailty score | 1.63 | 1.42, 1.86 | 1.44 | 1.23, 1.69 | 1.62 | 1.49, 1.76 | 1.43 | 1.26, 1.62 |
| Quintilef | ||||||||
| 2 | 1.37 | 0.82, 2.30 | 1.16 | 0.66, 2.05 | 1.29 | 0.73, 2.26 | 2.18 | 0.79, 5.98 |
| 3 | 1.59 | 0.98, 2.59 | 1.16 | 0.68, 1.99 | 1.63 | 0.96, 2.74 | 3.00 | 1.14, 7.90 |
| 4 | 1.97 | 1.24, 3.15 | 1.34 | 0.80, 2.26 | 2.26 | 1.36, 3.75 | 3.44 | 1.31, 9.00 |
| 5 | 2.93 | 1.82, 4.74 | 1.92 | 1.13, 3.25 | 3.60 | 2.16, 5.99 | 4.73 | 1.78, 12.54 |
| Fraile | ||||||||
| Continuous frailty score | 1.38 | 1.08, 1.76 | 1.40 | 0.90, 2.20 | 1.38 | 1.25, 1.53 | 1.55 | 1.26, 1.90 |
Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; RR, risk ratio.
a Participants who reported having difficulty in any of 6 activities of daily living (dressing, eating, toileting, bathing, transferring or getting out of bed, and walking across a room) were considered disabled.
b Adjusted for clinic site (only for the Cardiovascular Health Study), age, sex, race/ethnicity, and education.
c Adjusted for clinic site, age, sex, race (white, black), education (less than high school completion, high school completion or equivalent, and more than high school), smoking status (current, former, and never), and body mass index (<25.0, 25.0–30.0, and >30.0); history of coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and arthritis; and cognitive function measured by a modified Mini-Mental State Examination, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, C-reactive protein, cystatin C, and total cholesterol.
d Adjusted for age, sex, race (white, black, other), education (less than high school completion, high school completion or equivalent, and more than high school), smoking status (current, former, and never), and body mass index (<25.0, 25.0–30.0, and >30.0); history of cardiac disease (heart attack, coronary heart disease, angina, heart failure, or other heart problems), stroke, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and arthritis; and cognitive function measured by the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, C-reactive protein, cystatin C, and total cholesterol.
e Participants were identified as robust, prefrail, and frail based on the frailty phenotype scale (separately for the 2 cohorts). In both cohorts, >90% of frail persons identified by the physical frailty phenotype scale were in the quintile 5 of the continuous frailty scale.
f Quintile 1 was the reference group.