The Cognitive-Prefrail Syndrome and Its Association With Adverse Health Outcomes

Jewish General Hospital

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Prefrailty; Motoric Cognitive Risk Syndrome; Cognitive-prefrailty

Treatments: Other: Data Collection

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04240028

2020-2029

Details and patient eligibility

About

Lay Summary Older adults who are prefrail (an intermediate, potentially reversible stage between robustness and frailty) with early symptoms of cognitive impairment are a segment of the population that have hitherto remained "silent" and are currently not targets for screening and intervention. These individuals require early identification for preventive interventions to reduce disability, dependency and improve quality of life. To date, there is still no accepted definition of individuals upstream in the spectrum of physical frailty and cognitive impairment. Determining the prevalence and predictive ability of various definitions of co-existent frailty and cognitive impairment could identify older adults at greatest risk of adverse health outcomes. Therefore, the researchers aim to examine and compare (1) the prevalence of cognitive-prefrailty, prefrailty (IANA/IAGG consensus definition) and MCR syndromes, (2) the incidence and predictive ability of these three syndromes for adverse health outcomes including cognitive impairment and decline, dementia, physical functional impairment and decline, falls, hospitalization and mortality in older Quebec community dwellers.

Full description

Scientific Summary

Background Cognitive frailty is the simultaneous presence of both physical frailty and cognitive impairment, excluding concurrent dementia. This condition confers a greater risk of incident cognitive impairment and decline, dementia, falls and disabilities compared to either condition alone. Current definitions of co-existent frailty and cognitive impairment exist, including the International Academy on Nutrition and Aging (IANA) and the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG) consensus for cognitive frailty. There is also an analogous construct known as the motoric cognitive risk syndrome (MCR) associating slow gait speed and subjective cognitive impairment (SCI). Current operational criteria identify individuals later in the trajectory of frailty and cognitive decline, which may be too late for effective interventions. The researchers propose to define a new and early condition in the spectrum of Cognitive frailty known as "cognitive-prefrailty", which is a combination of prefrailty stage and SCI.

Overall objective This study aims to determine and compare (1) the prevalence of cognitive-prefrailty, cognitive frailty (IANA/IAGG consensus definition) and MCR syndromes, (2) the incidence and predictive ability of these three syndromes for adverse health outcomes including cognitive impairment and decline, dementia, physical functional impairment and decline, falls, hospitalization and mortality in older community dwellers.

Methods This study will use the database of the "Nutrition as a determinant of successful aging: The Quebec longitudinal study" (NuAge) study, which is a population-based observational cohort hat recruited healthy community-dwellers with age ranged from 67 to 84 years (51.8% women) between November 2003 and June 2005, and followed them during 4 years. Cognitive-prefrailty, prefrailty and MCR will be defined using information collected at the baseline assessment. Incident adverse health outcomes including cognitive impairment and decline, dementia, physical functional impairment and decline, falls, hospitalization and mortality have been recorded during the 4-years follow-up period.

Anticipated results Prefrailty (an intermediate and potentially reversible stage between robust and frailty) and SCI occur upstream in the continuum of frailty and cognitive decline and hence constitute more suitable targets for screening and early intervention in older adults.

Enrollment: 1,741 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 65+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Be participants of the NuAge study who agreed to be part of the NuAge Database and Biobank for future research purposes

Exclusion criteria

• Missing data at baseline and follow-up assessments
• Participants' refusal to use their data for a purpose not identified during their recruitment.

Trial design

1,741 participants in 3 patient groups

Individuals with prefrailty

Description:

This is defined as a co-existing prefrailty using the Fried criteria. Frailty defined by the CHS index as proposed by Fried et al. will be identified by the presence of ≥ 3 of the following 5 components: 1) Shrinking as identified by an unintentional weight loss of ≥ 5% between two assessments, 2) Weakness as identified by a maximal grip strength in the lowest quintile stratified by body mass index quartile; 3) Poor energy as identified by an answer of "no" to the question "Do you feel full of energy?" from the 30-item Geriatric Depression Scale; 4) Slowness as identified by an average walk speed in the lowest quintile stratified by median standing height, and 5) Low physical activity level as identified by a PASE score in the lowest quintile. Participants with none of the above components will be considered to be vigorous and those with 1 or 2 components will be considered to be in a prefrail stage.

Treatment:

Other: Data Collection

Individuals with cognitive-prefrailty

Description:

A combination of prefrailty stage using Fried criteria and subjective cognitive impairment (SCI). The IANA/IAGG consensus defines cognitive frailty as CDR = 0.5 and frailty by the Fried criteria.SCI will be defined using a proxy for subjective cognitive complaint (i.e. memory complaint) and following the procedure used in previous multicenter prevalence studies on MCR syndrome. Memory complaint used to define MCR syndrome was based on standardized memory loss question on the 15-item or 30-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS; "Do you feel you have more problems with memory than most?"). Memory complaint in our study will be elicited from this item of 30-item GDS.

Treatment:

Other: Data Collection

Individuals with MCR

Description:

The diagnosis of MCR syndrome will be made following the criteria of Verghese et al. 5: a combination of subjective cognitive complaint, in particular of memory complaint, with the presence of an objective slow gait and the absence of dementia or mobility disability. MCR syndrome will be defined at baseline assessment and each year of follow-up period. Slow gait speed will be defined as gait speed that is one standard deviation (SD) or more below age-and sex-appropriate mean values established in the present cohort like in previous studies. The mean value and SD of female and male will be determined separately. Gait speed was determined from the 3-meter walking test using the best time of the two trials recorded and expressed as meters per second.

Treatment:

Other: Data Collection