Prevention & lipidsCohort study
Frailty trajectories after a cardiovascular event among community-dwelling older people
- Prospective cohort study
Authors' conclusion
Our findings provide evidence that incident CVD event increases frailty burden
Study context
- Population
- Community-dwelling adults aged ≥65 years without prior cardiovascular disease (CVD) or other major health conditions at baseline56.4% women
- Participants
- 19,111 adults
- Exposure
- Incident CVD event vs no CVD event
- Outcome
- Change in frailty trajectories (64-item deficit-accumulation frailty index [FI] and Fried phenotype), measured annually
- Follow-up
- Up to 11 years; median 8.3 years
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Frailty after an incident CVD event (1934 events) · median 8.3-year follow-up
Short-term increase in frailty index (FI) after CVD event
adjusted beta 3.65 (95% CI 3.34 to 3.96)
Short-term increase in Fried after CVD event
adjusted beta 0.32 (95% CI 0.26 to 0.38)
Continued increase in FI over time afterwards (adjusted beta, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.62); only FI continued to increase
0.41
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Frailty increase by CVD event type
- Hospitalization for heart failure (HHF) and stroke associated with the greatest increase in frailty
Factors associated with frailty burden
- Age >80 years, women, living alone or residing in regional/remote areas associated with greater frailty burden
Original publication
Frailty trajectories after a cardiovascular event among community-dwelling older people. Eur J Prev Cardiol. Published 21 February 2025. doi:10.1093/eurjpc/zwaf095
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it