Global Sensory Impairment Predicts Morbidity and Mortality in Older U.S. Adults

Pinto, Jayant M.; Wroblewski, Kristen; Huisingh-Scheetz, Megan; Correia, Camil; Lopez, Kevin; Chen, Rachel C.; Kern, David W.; Schumm, L. Philip; Dale, William; McClintock, Martha K.

doi:10.1111/jgs.15031

Cited by 49 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(92 reference statements)

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“…Among the mortality studies, controlling for performance in activities of daily living or frailty score did not attenuate the effect (Pinto et al, 2014;Schubert et al, 2016). Global sensory impairment (including the five classical senses: smell, taste, hearing, vision and touch) predicts 5-year mortality, but also major components of physical frailty (e.g., slow gait, weight loss, low activity) (Pinto et al, 2017). The same authors developed the concept that multisensory loss of function could reflect a common underlying aging process (Correia et al, 2016).…”

Section: Accelerated Brain Agingmentioning

confidence: 86%

Mechanisms Linking Olfactory Impairment and Risk of Mortality

et al. 2020

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Olfaction is a sense involved in a complex set of tasks, influencing eating behavior, increasing awareness of environmental hazards and affecting social communication. Surprisingly, smell disorders are very frequent, especially in the elderly population. Several recent studies conducted mostly in older subjects have demonstrated a strong association between olfactory impairment and overall mortality risk, with anosmia being even more predictive of 5 years mortality risk than cardiovascular disease. Presently, the underlying pathophysiology linking olfactory impairment to mortality remains unknown and only putative mechanisms are suggested. This review aims to examine the link between olfactory impairment and mortality and to discuss existing ideas on underlying existing mechanisms including, (1) the effect of olfactory loss on nutrition, life-threatening situations and social interactions, (2) associated neurodegenerative diseases, (3) accelerated brain aging, and (4) reflection of general health status being reflected in olfactory function.

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Section: Accelerated Brain Agingmentioning

confidence: 86%

Mechanisms Linking Olfactory Impairment and Risk of Mortality

et al. 2020

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“…First, even if analyses of the potential impact of attrition revealed no major differences in the main results, the fact that those who were lost to follow-up were more likely to be older, female and low educated might have led to underestimating the DA index slope. Another limitation is that, despite our study included a greater number of health deficits than most previous reports [3;4;6;8], it did not include sensory impairments, which are highly prevalent and have shown to predict mortality in older adults [30]. Also, although adjustment for functionality was performed, results for dimensions that relied on self-reported data (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Trajectories of Accumulation of Health Deficits in Older Adults: Are There Variations According to Health Domains?

García‐Esquinas

Prina

Stefler

et al. 2019

Journal of the American Medical Directors Association

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Objectives: To analyze sex-and education-specific trajectories of health deficits accumulation (DA) throughout old age, and to examine whether these trajectories differ according to health domains. Design: Population-based prospective cohort study Setting and participants: In Spain, 3,228 community-dwelling individuals aged 60 years or older followed-up for 10 years. Measures: At baseline and three follow-up visits, a DA index (0 to 100% deficit) was calculated based on the number and severity of 52 health deficits across the domains of physical and cognitive function, self-rated health and vitality, mental health, and morbidity. Trajectories of overall and domain-specific DA indexes were estimated using mixed models for repeated measurements, allowing for homogeneous linear, piecewise linear and smooth nonlinear DA trends over age. Results: Women showed greater DA than men, but differences leveled out with age: annual increments in DA index (95% confidence interval) for participants aged <70, 70-80 and ≥80 years were, respectively, 0.

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“…They measured sensitivity thresholds for taste, smell, thermal sensitivity (cooling), vibrotaction (both low- and high-frequency), and hearing (both low- and high-frequency) in 15 young and 22 older participants and observed an age-related reduction in sensitivity and acuity. The authors found significant positive correlations between all the modalities and age accounted for most of the variance challenging the “common factor theory” (or global sensory impairment) which instead postulates that common mechanisms underlie the decline of the sensory systems, supporting the concept of a unified underlying process of sensory aging [ 20 , 24 ]. Such a framework is conceptually similar to the concept of the “common cause hypothesis”, which states that a common underlying factor drives age-related deterioration in cognitive and sensory processes [ 23 , 25 , 26 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensory-specific impairment among older people. An investigation using both sensory thresholds and subjective measures across the five senses

et al. 2018

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Age-related sensory impairment is a slow and gradual progress, which affects multiple modalities. Two contradictory hypotheses exist about the age-related decline of sensory thresholds. The common factor theory assumes one underlying factor—which accounts for the loss of several sensory modalities simultaneously—and the specific factor theory predicts that the sensory decline is uncorrelated between different modalities. In this study, we aimed to explore whether (i) there is a common factor of sensory thresholds in older people, (ii) older people assume that sensory decline in one modality also affects other modalities, (iii) there is a relation between sensory threshold and the subjective assessment of sensory function. This was accomplished by collecting both threshold measures and self-reported ratings for smell, hearing, taste, vision, and touch function in a group of 104 older people (mean age: 67.2 years; SD: 9.85; range: 50–100 years). Results indicated that there was no common factor of sensory thresholds, hence an impairment in one modality did not necessarily imply a shortfall in other modalities. In contrast, our results suggested one or two common factor(s) for the participants’ ratings. Participants who reported a diminished function in one sense tended to generalize this rating to the other senses as well. The correspondence between subjective ratings and sensory thresholds was relatively good for vision and audition, although no correlations were observed for the other domains. These findings have implications for clinicians, suggesting that subjective measures should be combined with sensory threshold measurements when evaluating sensory dysfunction. Also, these data convey a positive message for older people and their physicians by showing that loss in one sensory modality does not necessarily generalize to losses across all sensory modalities.

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Global Sensory Impairment Predicts Morbidity and Mortality in Older U.S. Adults

Cited by 49 publications

References 55 publications

Mechanisms Linking Olfactory Impairment and Risk of Mortality

Mechanisms Linking Olfactory Impairment and Risk of Mortality

Trajectories of Accumulation of Health Deficits in Older Adults: Are There Variations According to Health Domains?

Sensory-specific impairment among older people. An investigation using both sensory thresholds and subjective measures across the five senses

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