It is important to establish whether frailty among older individuals is reversible with nutritional, physical, or cognitive interventions, singly or in combination. We compared the effects of 6-month-duration interventions with nutritional supplementation, physical training, cognitive training, and combination treatment vs control in reducing frailty among community-dwelling prefrail and frail older persons. We conducted a parallel group, randomized controlled trial in community-living prefrail and frail old adults in Singapore. The participants' mean age was 70.0 years, and 61.4% (n = 151) were female. Five different 6-month interventions included nutritional supplementation (n = 49), cognitive training (n = 50), physical training (n = 48), combination treatment (n = 49), and usual care control (n = 50). Frailty score, body mass index, knee extension strength, gait speed, energy/vitality, and physical activity levels and secondary outcomes (activities of daily living dependency, hospitalization, and falls) were assessed at 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months. Frailty score and status over 12 months were reduced in all groups, including control (15%), but were significantly higher (35.6% to 47.8%) in the nutritional (odds ratio [OR] 2.98), cognition (OR 2.89), and physical (OR 4.05) and combination (OR 5.00) intervention groups. Beneficial effects were observed at 3 months and 6 months, and persisted at 12 months. Improvements in physical frailty domains (associated with interventions) were most evident for knee strength (physical, cognitive, and combination treatment), physical activity (nutritional intervention), gait speed (physical intervention), and energy (combination intervention). There were no major differences with respect to the small numbers of secondary outcomes. Physical, nutritional, and cognitive interventional approaches were effective in reversing frailty among community-living older persons.

Research from JAMA Internal Medicine — Depressive Symptoms and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease — Effect on Mortality, Hospital Readmission, Symptom Burden, Functional Status, and Quality of Life

Background: Few studies have evaluated the validation of 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) in a heterogeneous population with different age, ethnicity and comorbidities of elderly users of social services in the community. Aims: To assess the criterion validity and reliability of the GDS-15 and its equivalence across different gender, age groups, ethnicity and different comorbidities in community living elderly and nursing homes residents. Method: A validation sample of non-demented 4253 elderly (age ≥ 60 years), who regularly use community based care corner, senior activity center, day care center, sheltered homes and nursing homes were interviewed using the GDS-15. Structured clinical interview (SCID) was used to make DSM-IV diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD). Results: The overall sensitivity and specificity were 0.97 and 0.95, respectively (area under curve, AUC was 0.98). The overall Cronbach's alpha was 0.80, and intraclass coefficient of test-–retest reliability over 2 weeks was 0.83 and inter-rater reliability was 0.94 (intra-class) and 0.99 (Cohen's kappa). Although some items in the GDS-15 appeared to be biased by gender, age and ethnicity, there were no clinically significant differences in test performance among different age, gender, ethnicity and comorbidities at cutoff of 4/5. Conclusions: The GDS-15 was a reliable and valid screening for MDD across different age, gender, ethnicity and chronic illness status in the community and social service setting.

Evidence strongly supports the important role of insulin resistance in cognitive decline and dementia and suggests that insulin sensitizers may protect against cognitive decline in diabetic and pre-diabetic individuals. Inconclusive results have been

Curcumin, from the curry spice turmeric, has been shown to possess potent antioxidant and antiinflammatory properties and to reduce β-amyloid and plaque burden in experimental studies, but epidemiologic evidence is lacking. The authors investigated the association between usual curry consumption level and cognitive function in elderly Asians. In a population-based cohort (n = 1,010) of nondemented elderly Asian subjects aged 60–93 years in 2003, the authors compared Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores for three categories of regular curry consumption, taking into account known sociodemographic, health, and behavioral correlates of MMSE performance. Those who consumed curry “occasionally” and “often or very often” had significantly better MMSE scores than did subjects who “never or rarely” consumed curry. The authors reported tentative evidence of better cognitive performance from curry consumption in nondemented elderly Asians, which should be confirmed in future studies.

There is a recent consensus proposal of "cognitive frailty" defined by the presence of both physical frailty and cognitive impairment in the absence of dementia. The relevance, validity, and utilization of cognitive frailty, however, is presently unclear. We determine whether concurrent physical frailty and cognitive impairment, compared with physical frailty alone substantially increased adverse health outcomes (functional disability, hospitalization, poor quality of life [QOL], and mortality). Longitudinal study. Population-based cohort (Singapore Longitudinal Ageing Study, SLAS). Two thousand three hundred seventy-five Chinese Singaporeans aged 55 and above without dementia and degenerative disorders. The associations of physical frailty (Cardiovascular Health Study criteria: 0 = robust, 1-2 = pre-frail, 3-5 = frail) with and without cognitive impairment (mini-mental state examination <26) and adverse outcomes were estimated, controlling for age, gender, education, comorbidity, smoking, alcohol consumption, depressive symptoms, baseline activities of daily living-instrumental and basic activities of daily living disability or QOL score. Compared to robust noncognitively impaired individuals, physical pre-frailty with cognitive impairment was associated with a twofold increased prevalence and incidence of functional disability, a twofold increased incidence of poor QOL, and 1.8-fold increased mortality risks. Cognitively impaired frail individuals stood out with 12- to 13-fold increased prevalence and incidence of functional disability, a five- and 27-fold increased prevalence and incidence of low QOL, and a fivefold increased mortality risk. The estimated prevalence of physical frailty with cognitive impairment was 1.8%, and physical pre-frailty with cognitive impairment was 8.9%. Pre-frailty and frailty with impaired cognitive function, found in 10.7% of this dementia-free population, was associated with an evidently high risk of adverse health outcomes.