Life-Space Mobility and Frailty in Older Japanese Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study

Objectives

Some studies reported a relationship between life-space mobility (LSM) and frailty assessed by physical aspects; however, a more comprehensive discussion of frailty is underdeveloped. In addition, previous studies have focused only on older Euro-American people. Therefore, we aimed to examine LSM-frailty relationships in community-dwelling older Japanese persons using physical and comprehensive frailty indices.

Design

A cross-sectional study.

Setting and Participants

We used the data of 8898 older adults from a baseline survey of the Kyoto-Kameoka Study in Japan.

Methods

The validated life-space assessment (LSA) was used to evaluate LSM and categorized it into quartiles. Two validated indices were used to evaluate frailty: the Kihon Checklist (KCL) and the simple Frailty Screening Index (FSI). Multivariable logistic regression was used to determine the relationships between LSM scores and frailty.

Results

The mean age (SD) of the participants was 73.4 (6.3) years, and 53.3% were women. The mean LSM score of the study participants was 53.0. The prevalence of frailty by KCL and FSI was 40.7% and 16.8%, respectively. Significant differences between LSM score and frailty prevalence were observed [KCL: Q1, reference; Q2, odds ratio (OR) 0.53, 95% CI 0.45–0.62; Q3, OR 0.30, 95% CI 0.25–0.35; Q4: OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.18–0.26, P for trend <.001; FSI: Q1, reference; Q2, OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.48–0.68; Q3: OR 0.38, 95% CI 0.31–0.46; Q4: OR 0.35, 95% CI 0.28–0.42, P for trend <.001]. Similar results were observed when LSM scores were examined at 10-point intervals, with LSM and frailty exhibiting an L-shaped relationship. The LSM score dose-response curve at which the OR for frailty plateaued among older individuals was approximately 81–90 score.

Conclusions and Implications

LSM score and frailty prevalence exhibited L-shaped relationships in community-dwelling older persons. This study's findings provide useful data for setting LSM targets for preventing frailty in community-dwelling older persons.