Association between Oral Frailty and Physical Frailty among Rural Middle-Old Community-Dwelling People with Cognitive Decline in Taiwan: A Cross-Sectional Study

Ya-Wen Kuo and Jiann- Der Lee
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Ya-Wen Kuo: Department of Nursing, College of Nursing, Chang Gung University of Science and Technology, Puzi 613, Taiwan
Jiann- Der Lee: Department of Neurology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital Chiayi Branch, Puzi 613, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-11

Abstract: This cross-sectional study was conducted to clarify the association between oral frailty (OF) and physical frailty (PF). In total, 308 Taiwanese middle-old (75–84 years) community-dwelling people with cognitive decline were recruited from random rural community health care centers. Eight items were considered for the evaluation of their OF status. The Study of Osteoporotic Fracture index was used for frailty assessment, which revealed that 22% of the participants had PF. In an adjusted model, PF was significantly associated with the OF subdomains of difficult to eat hard food ( p = 0.009), choking ( p = 0.008), denture use ( p = 0.008), and inability to chew hard food ( p = 0.001); and high risk of OF (OR = 3.03; p = 0.002). After eight steps with elimination of the least significant independent variable, age ( p = 0.008), self-reported health status of fair ( p = 0.000) and poor ( p = 0.000), mild cognitive impairment ( p < 0.001) and denture use ( p = 0.011) were found to be the indispensable predictors for PF. The logistic regression model with 5 indispensable variables had a predictive value of 78.2%. Longitudinal analyses are needed to examine whether OF is a risk factor for PF onset.

Keywords: oral frailty; physical frailty; rural middle-old people; cognitive decline (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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