Apriori Correlation Analysis of Geriatric Malnutrition, Sarcopenia, Frailty, and Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndromes Based on Data Mining Techniques.

Abstract

Introduction: Malnutrition, sarcopenia, and frailty are highly prevalent (with rates ranging from 56% to 74%) among hospitalized elderly patients with comorbidities, and they are key geriatric syndromes that contribute to disability, reduced quality of life, and poor clinical outcomes. However, existing Western medicine guidelines mainly focus on isolated nutritional support and exercise interventions, lack holistic thinking and often treat the three conditions separately, which leads to suboptimal comprehensive clinical effectiveness. To address this, the present study adopts a cross-sectional design and employs data mining techniques to explore the intrinsic associations between these three geriatric conditions and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome types in hospitalized elderly patients with comorbidities, aiming to provide empirical evidence for developing targeted integrated Chinese-Western dietary intervention strategies.

Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled hospitalized elderly patients to collect nutritional status indicators and TCM disease and syndrome diagnosis data. The Apriori algorithm was adopted to excavate association rules with screening criteria of support >0.01, confidence >0.5, lift >1, and p < 0.05. Association heatmaps were used to visualize correlation intensity.

Results: A total of 1,049 patients were included. Among those with co-existing nutritional risk, malnutrition, sarcopenia, and frailty, the main TCM diseases were consumptive disease ("Xū Láo"), cough and fever, and the dominant TCM syndromes included turbid phlegm obstructing the lung, dual deficiency of qi and blood, qi deficiency combined with blood stasis. Statistically significant associations were found: dyspnea was related to nutritional risk; fever and cough were closely associated with frailty and nutritional risk; consumptive disease correlated with nutritional risk, malnutrition and frailty. Among TCM syndromes, dampness-heat pouring downward corresponded to nutritional risk; qi deficiency with blood stasis and turbid phlegm obstructing the lung were linked to frailty and nutritional risk, while qi-blood dual deficiency was associated with all three adverse nutritional conditions.

Conclusion: Typical TCM diseases and common syndromes are closely associated with adverse nutritional status in elderly inpatients. Clinically, active targeted screening for malnutrition, sarcopenia, and frailty should be conducted in patients presenting the above TCM syndromes, with differentiated dietary interventions implemented simultaneously.