Dysphagia is associated with oral, physical, cognitive and psychological frailty in Japanese community-dwelling elderly persons.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate which domains of frailty are associated with dysphagia in community-dwelling elderly persons.

BACKGROUND

Dysphagia is a common cause of aspiration pneumonia in frail elderly persons in Japan. Although frailty is considered to be multidimensional, it is unclear which domains of frailty affect dysphagia.

METHODS

The participants were 3475 independent Japanese elderly persons (≥65 years; 1555 men and 1920 women). A self-report questionnaire with a frailty checklist consisting of several domains (lifestyle, physical function, nutrition, oral function, homebound status, cognitive function and depressive mood) was used to determine the participants' characteristics. Dysphagia was defined as impaired swallowing in the oral function domain. To determine the associations between dysphagia and age, sex and the other domains on the frailty checklist, adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated using multiple logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS

The multiple logistic regression analysis showed that dysphagia was independently associated with female sex (AOR = 1.35; 95% CI = 1.08-1.68), chewing ability (AOR = 1.70; 95% CI = 1.32-2.18), oral dryness (AOR = 1.94; 95% CI = 1.48-2.54), physical function (AOR = 2.19; 95% CI = 1.66-2.90), cognitive function (AOR = 1.68; 95% CI = 1.34-2.12) and depressive mood (AOR = 1.82; 95% CI = 1.41-2.35).

CONCLUSION

Dysphagia was independently associated with oral, physical, cognitive and psychological frailty. These results suggest that frailty prevention strategy including swallowing training might be useful for community-dwelling independent elderly persons aged ≥65 years.