Frailty in elderly people over 70 years in Sardoma Primary Care Center

Abstract

Aim: To estimate the prevalence of frailty in elderly people over 70 years with a sample of the Spanish population and its risk factors.

Methodology: Cross-sectional observational study.

Location: Sardoma Primary Care Center (Vigo, Galicia).

Method: Consecutive opportunistic sampling reaching N=384 patients over 70 years old assigned to Sardoma Primary Care Center (Vigo, Galicia), with a Barthel score greater than 60 points. 3 patients were excluded due to lack of information.

Frailty was measured using the SPPB scale and other data were collected in order to find association with the main variable age, sex, pluripathologies, consumption of psychotropics drugs, sedentary lifestyle and physical exercise (IPAQ-E scale), depression risk (Yesavage scale), and nutritional status (MNA). A linear multivariate regression model was used to evaluate the association between these data and frailty, measured with the SPPB scale.

Results: The percentage of frail elderly (SPPB under 10) in the study area is 35.35%. Advanced age, a lower Barthel index, female gender, a sedentary lifestyle, depression and a low level of nutrition have been found to have a significant association with frailty, in descending order of influence on it. Polypathology and physical exercise have also been found to have a significant association, although less than the others, the first one with a negative influence and the second one as a positive influence.

Conclusions: Frailty is a multifactorial syndrome that can be measured objectively, reliably and quickly in primary care practice using the SPPB scale. The prevalence results are similar to those of other studies that measure frailty using the Fried scale, validating the SPPB as a useful tool in clinical practice. In addition, intervenable factors that can condition an improvement in our elderly patients’health have been identified.