Cognitive frailty and quality of life in chilean older people

With the objective to describe cognitive frailty and its association with Quality of Life (QoL) in older Chileans we made a cross-sectional study in 865 community-dwelling people ≥60y, living in Santiago Chile. The participants, mean age 66 ± 3.5y(min60;max89), 73% women, underwent interviews including self-reported chronic diseases, disability/functional limitations and mobility. Anthropometry, dynamometry and physical performance were measured. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) was defined with an MMSE score<21 and absence of dementia. The frailty phenotype was defined as having ≥3 from the 5 following criteria: weak handgrip dynamometry, unintentional weight loss, fatigue/exhaustion, five chair-stands/slow walking speed and low physical activity. Cognitive frailty was defined as having physical frailty plus MCI. QoL was evaluated trough Short-form General-Health-Survey (SF-12). Norm-based score of 8 subscales and two summaries components -Mental (MCS) and Physical (PCS) were calculated using the Older-Chileans-Specific-scoring. Low score was defined as having a score ≤ 25th percentile. Cognitive frailty was identified in 13.9% of the sample (16.5% women;6.8% men,p<0.001). PCS score was 46.7 in non-frail, 44.6 in frail and 43.1 in cognitive-frail people, nptrend<0.001. MCS score was 56.8, 50.6 and 49.9 respectively (nptrend<0.001). The age and gender adjusted logistic regression showed that a low MCS was associated with cognitive frailty (OR=4.01 95%CI 2.58–6.23), physical frailty (OR=3.18 95%CI 1.49–6.76), and multimorbidity (OR=2.19 95%CI 1.42–3.37). Low PCS was associated with cognitive frailty (OR=4.25 95%CI 2.76–6.56), having≥4 chronic diseases (OR=2.39 95%CI 1.40–4.08) and obesity (OR=1.94 95%CI 1.62–3.25). The threat to QoL posed by Cognitive frailty to older Chileans should be addressed urgently by public policies.