ANTHROPOMETRY AND STRENGTH IN PREFRAIL AND FRAIL ELDERS

Resumen

Frailty lead to an age-related vulnerability which might be aggravated in elder with low physical fitness. In this line, a quick and easy tool to estimate strength in frail or prefrail elders is the handgrip. Higher handgrip levels prevent frailty and morbimortality, however, at primary care is complicate to have dynamometers. To analyse the relationship between anthropometric measurements and handgrip strength in prefrailand frail elders. A first batch of participants from the FRAGSALUD project has been analysed in the present pilot study. Twenty-nine elders over 65 years (48% of men, aged 77 ± 7 years, body mass index of 29 ± 5 kg/m2) meeting at least one Fried criteria (prefrail o frail participants) were included. Waist, brachial, and calf circumferences were measured by an experienced researcher. Regarding the handgrip strength test, the best of two maximum attempts was included. Multiple linear regression and Pearson correlation analyses were applied. Handgrip strength was associated with waist, brachial, and calf circumferences (p<0.001). As expected, the circumference that best predicted the handgrip strength was the brachial one in the frail and prefrail elders. Since strength is a relevant health outcome in prefrail and frail elders, its estimation and evaluation is essential from primary care in order to prevent sarcopenia, falls, and functional dependency, among others. Thus, in case that a handgrip dynamometer is not available by nurses of health professionals, body circumferences can also estimate the handgrip strength, and therefore physical fitness in prefrail and frail elders. The FRAGSALUD project will investigate the impact of a health educational program on these variables.