Association of brain pathology with the progression of frailty in older adults.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

We tested the hypothesis that brain pathology is associated with the rate of progression of physical frailty in older adults.

Methods

A total of 791 older adults participating in the Religious Orders Study and Memory and Aging Project had annual clinical evaluations from which a previously established composite measure of physical frailty was derived and brain autopsy after death. A uniform neuropathologic examination included the assessment of macroinfarcts, microinfarcts, atherosclerosis, arteriolosclerosis, Alzheimer disease and Lewy body pathology, and nigral neuronal loss.

Results

Mean follow-up before death was 6.4 years and age at death was 88.5 years. More than 95% of cases had evidence of one or more brain pathologies. In a linear mixed-effect model

SUBMITTER: Buchman AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3716398 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature