Prevalence of frailty status among the European elderly population: Findings from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe

Abstract

Aim In the present study, we aimed to update the data of frailty status in the European community‐dwelling population of older adults, based on the latest data released (wave 6) of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe database, and to study the impact of each criterion on frailty assessment. Methods Frailty status was assessed applying a version of the Fried phenotype operationalized for the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe. We included all participants who answered all the questions used in a frailty assessment and who disclosed their sex and, furthermore, who were aged ≥50 years. Our final sample was 60 816 individuals. Of these, the mean age was 67.45 ± 9.71 years; 38 497 (56.4%) were women. Results The overall prevalence of pre‐frailty was 42.9% (ranging from 34.0% in Austria to 52.8% in Estonia), and frailty was 7.7% (ranging from 3.0% in Switzerland to 15.6% in Portugal). Pre‐frailty and frailty prevalence increased along with age, and were more frequent among women. Regarding the five criteria considered on frailty assessment, exhaustion seems to be the criterion that contributes most to frailty status, followed by low activity, weakness, loss of appetite and slowness. Conclusions With this work, we showed that >50% of the European population aged >50 years are pre‐frail/frail, which must be considered when designing interventions to reduce/postpone/mitigate the progression of this condition, thus reducing the burden associated with it. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2019; 19: 723–729.

Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (iADL) Limitations in Europe: An Assessment of SHARE Data

“…Increased longevity leads to the enhanced occurrence of chronic diseases, comorbidities and geriatric syndromes [ 35 ]. As expected, physical inactivity, multiple comorbidities, polypharmacy, obesity, being underweight and frailty were all associated with the presence of more than one iADLs limitation, which reflects the multi sectorial geriatric dimension of PD [ 17 , 22 , 36 , 37 ]. Though a wide range of cardiovascular, oncologic or orthopaedic pathologies can disrupt functional decline and iADLs performance, they also have a cumulative effect on health and are linked to polypharmacy and its associated side effects, physical activity restrictions, poor nutritional status, muscle mass loss and frailty [ 38 , 39 ].…”

“…The continuous variable BMI was transformed into a discrete variable by grouping the BMI into four discrete ranges (below 18.5, 18.5–24.9, 25–29.9 and more than 30 kg/m 2 ). Frailty was accessed as previously described [ 17 ]. For describing psychological domain and lifestyle, we included four variables in the analysis, as follows: “self-perceived health”, “life has meaning”, “network satisfaction” and “depression”.…”

Frailty Prevalence and Association with Health-Related Quality of Life Impairment among Rural Community-Dwelling Older Adults in Vietnam

“…The risk of frailty increases with age due to the gradual decrease of functional capacity and increase of functional dependence; therefore, it is particularly common in older adults [6,7]. Moreover, factors that have been recognized as significant risk factors for the occurrence of frailty include being female, single marital status, a lack of social support, a higher rate of comorbidities, disability, and functional limitation [8,9,10]. Nonetheless, there is no consensus of the frailty rate across countries.…”

The Role of Socio-Economic Inequality in Physical Immobility Among Older Adults: Did the Scenario Changed from 2004-05 to 2017-18?

“…The prevalence of the population of older adults is as high as 28.4% in Japan (5) to as low as 4.9% in Israel (6). Moreover, the prevalence of older adults was found to be increasing in every subsequent age group cohorts in most of the European countries suggesting a higher prevalence of older adults at higher ages (7).…”