Cognitive Prefrail and Frailty, and Motoric Cognitive Risk Syndrome: Prevalence and Association With Incident Adverse Health Events

Overview

We defined a new and early condition in the spectrum of cognitive frailty: the "cognitive-prefrailty" which is a combination of prefrailty stage and subjective cognitive impairment (SCI). This study aims to: (1) examine and compare the prevalence of cognitive-prefrailty, cognitive frailty and motoric cognitive risk syndrome (MCR) syndromes in participants of the Canadian Longitudinal Study of Aging (CLSA) using the (tracking and comprehensive) baseline assessment, (2) examine the association of cognitive-prefrailty, cognitive frailty and MCR syndromes with incident adverse health events using the information collected during the first CLSA 18-month follow-up, and (3) compare the criteria performances (i.e., sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, area under receiver operating characteristic curve, positive and negative likelihood ratio) for incident adverse health events of the cognitive-prefrailty, cognitive frailty and MCR syndromes.

Background Cognitive frailty is the simultaneous presence of both physical frailty and cognitive impairment, excluding concurrent dementia. This condition confers a greater risk of incident cognitive impairment and decline, dementia, falls and disabilities compared to either condition alone. Current definitions of co-existent frailty and cognitive impairment exist, including the International Academy on Nutrition and Aging (IANA) and the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG) consensus for cognitive frailty. There is also an analogous construct known as the motoric cognitive risk syndrome (MCR) associating slow gait speed and subjective cognitive impairment (SCI). Current operational criteria identify individuals later in the trajectory of frailty and cognitive decline, which may be too late for effective interventions. We propose to define a new and early condition in the spectrum of Cognitive frailty known as "cognitive-prefrailty", which is a combination of prefrailty stage and SCI. Overall objective This study aims to: 1) Examine and compare the prevalence of cognitive-prefrailty, cognitive frailty and motoric cognitive risk syndrome (MCR) syndromes in participants of the Canadian Longitudinal Study of Aging (CLSA) using the (tracking and comprehensive) baseline assessment, 2) Examine the association of cognitive-prefrailty, cognitive frailty and MCR syndromes with incident adverse health events using the information collected during the first CLSA 18-month follow-up, 3) Compare the criteria performances (i.e., sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), area under receiver operating characteristic curve, positive and negative likelihood ratio (LR)) for incident adverse health events of the cognitive-prefrailty, cognitive frailty and MCR syndromes. Methods This study will use the database of the CLSA, which is population-based observational and prospective cohort study that assesses and follows the health condition of the Canadian population. All items of cognitive-prefrailty, cognitive frailty and MCR syndromes have been collected during the baseline assessment in the tracking and the comprehensive assessments. In addition, all information needed to determine incident adverse health events including falls and related injuries, depression, functional decline, motoric cognitive risk syndrome, cognitive decline and dementia has been also collected during the first 18-month follow-up period. Anticipated results Prefrailty is an intermediate and potentially reversible stage between robust and frailty that occur upstream in the continuum of frailty and hence constitute more suitable targets for screening and early intervention in older adults.