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Original Study
Sarcopenia Is Associated With Physical and Mental Components of Health-Related Quality of Life in Older Adults

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Abstract

Objectives

To estimate the association between sarcopenia and the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among community-dwelling older adults.

Design

Cross-sectional analysis of a prospective cohort.

Setting

The Rural Frailty Study, a prospective study on the prevalence of frailty in rural settings in Mexico, with baseline and follow-up measurements conducted in 2009 and 2013, respectively.

Participants

Five hundred forty-three men and women older than 70 years.

Measurements

Information regarding demographic characteristics, comorbidities, mental status, dependency in activities of daily living, frailty, HRQoL, and other characteristics was obtained. Objective measurements of muscle strength and physical performance were grip strength using a manual hydraulic dynamometer and walking speed; measure of low muscle was by a calf circumference. Sarcopenia was defined according to the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People criteria. Physical and mental components of the HRQoL were measured through the Medical Outcomes Study Health Survey Questionnaire 36-Item Short Form.

Results

Prevalence of sarcopenia was 20.6% for severe and 15.8% for moderate. After adjusting for sociodemographic and health characteristics, severe sarcopenia was significantly and inversely associated with both the physical (β = −5.39; P = .010) and the mental components (β = −3.69; P = .057) of HRQoL when compared with pre- and nonsarcopenic individuals.

Conclusions

Our results on the association between sarcopenia and HRQoL suggest that the latter declines in the presence of severe sarcopenia in older adults. This finding highlights the relevance of the early detection of sarcopenia in older individuals, and even that its detection must be a part of routine diagnosis procedures.

Section snippets

Sample and Procedures

We used data from the Rural Frailty Study, a prospective study on the prevalence of frailty in rural settings in Mexico, with baseline and follow-up measurements conducted in 2009 and 2013, respectively. Details of the Rural Frailty Study have been reported previously.18 Briefly, at baseline, the study included a nonprobabilistic sample of 600 older adults, who reside in 7 states of Mexico and across 115 municipalities. This sample size was calculated to detect prevalence rates of at least 4%

Results

The following general characteristics were observed in the study sample: 543 older adults were included, the mean age of participants was 76.1 years (SD = 3.1 years). 52.7% were female, 60.2% were illiterate, 36.1% spoke an indigenous language, 30% held paid jobs, and 48.6% were married/cohabiting. Regarding health characteristics of the study population, 43.2% had overweight/obesity, 3.3% underweight and 53.5% adequate weight; 52.7% was reported at least 1 chronic condition and 21.6% had

Discussion

Sarcopenia constitutes a major health problem affecting millions of older adults around the world. Despite its mounting prevalence, however, no general agreement has been reached regarding a conceptual or empirical definition.24, 25 Highly variable global rate reports may be attributable to the wide array of definitions and methods used to measure sarcopenia.3

Our results on prevalence are consistent with several other studies having adopted the EWGSOP criteria. In fact, a systematic review of

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  • Cited by (0)

    The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

    This work was supported by the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT; Grant SALUD-2012-C01-183089).

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