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Epidemiology
Research
Prevalence of frailty in older adults in outpatient physiotherapy in an urban region in the western part of Germany: a cross-sectional study
  1. Tobias Braun1,
  2. Christian Thiel1,2,
  3. Carina Ziller1,
  4. Julia Rasche1,
  5. Carolin Bahns1,
  6. Lisa Happe1,
  7. Theresa Retzmann1,
  8. Christian Grüneberg1
  1. 1 Department of Applied Health Sciences, Hochschule für Gesundheit Bochum, Bochum, Germany
  2. 2 Faculty of Sports Science, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
  1. Correspondence to Tobias Braun; tobias.braun{at}hs-gesundheit.de

Abstract

Objective To investigate the prevalence of frailty in older people in outpatient physiotherapy services in an urban region in the western part of Germany.

Design Cross-sectional study.

Setting Outpatient physiotherapy clinics were recruited in the municipal area of the city of Bochum, Germany, and selected randomly.

Participants Older adults aged 65 years and older seeking outpatient physiotherapy.

Primary and secondary outcome measures Prevalence of frailty was assessed based on the frailty phenotype model of physical frailty and the accumulation of deficit model, expressed as a Frailty Index. Prevalence was calculated for the whole sample and according to age-related, sex-related and diagnosis-related subgroups.

Results A total of 258 participants (74±6 years, 62% female) from 11 out of 130 (8%) different physiotherapy clinics were included. Participants’ main indication for physiotherapy was an orthopaedic or surgical condition (75%). According to the model of a physical frailty phenotype, 17.8% (95% CI 13.2 to 22.5) participants were frail and 43.4% (95% CI 37.4 to 49.5) were prefrail. The Frailty Index identified 31.0% (95% CI 25.4 to 36.7) of individuals as frail. In both models, prevalence increased with age and was higher in women than in men. Slow gait speed (34%), reduced muscle strength (34%) and exhaustion (28%) were the most prevalent indicators of physical frailty.

Conclusions Frailty is comparatively common in older patients attending physiotherapy care in Germany, with one out of three individuals being frail and every second individual being physically frail or prefrail.

Trial registration number DRKS00009384; Results.

  • frail older adults
  • aged
  • frailty index
  • frailty phenotype
  • prevalence
  • epidemiology

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-027768

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors Study concept and design: TB, CT and CG. Acquisition of data: CZ, CB, LH, JR and TR. Analysis of data, interpretation of data, drafting the manuscript: TB. Manuscript revision for important intellectual content: CT, CZ, CB, LH, JR, TR and CG. Final approval of the version to be published: all authors.

    • Funding This research was funded by an intramural grant from the Hochschule für Gesundheit Bochum (University of Applied Sciences).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval Approval was obtained from the Ethical Review Board of the German Confederation for Physiotherapy (registration number: 2015-07).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement Data can be obtained from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.