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Frailty is an independent predictor of incident dementia: Evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Rogers, NT; Steptoe, A; Cadar, D; (2017) Frailty is an independent predictor of incident dementia: Evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Scientific Reports , 7 , Article 15746. 10.1038/s41598-017-16104-y. Green open access

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine whether frailty in older adults is associated with the risk of subsequent dementia. A total of 8,722 older adults from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing were followed-up every two years until they reported a diagnosis of dementia, died, or were right censored. Frailty was defined using a frailty index comprised of 47 health deficits. To test if cognitive function influences the relationship between frailty and incident dementia, the analyses were repeated according to lower or upper three quartiles of baseline cognitive function. Competing risks regression and Cox proportional hazard models were used to evaluate whether the degree of baseline frailty was associated with incident dementia. Compared with non-frail participants, pre-frail (HR: 1.51 95%CI [1.12–2.02]) and frail participants (HR: 1.73 95%CI [1.22–2.43]) had a higher risk of developing dementia, after adjustment for covariates. The association between frailty and incident dementia was significant for adults in the upper three quartiles of global cognitive function (HR: 3.48 95%CI [1.98–6.12]), but not for adults who were in the lowest quartile of cognitive function (HR: 1.13 95%CI [0.74–1.71]). Frailty should be monitored alongside cognitive functioning when assessing risk factors for dementia in older adults.

Type: Article
Title: Frailty is an independent predictor of incident dementia: Evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-16104-y
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16104-y
Language: English
Additional information: Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Behavioural Science and Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10037898
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