Frailty may be a risk marker for adverse outcome in patients with congestive heart failure

Sumio Yamada; Kuniyasu Kamiya; Yuji Kono

doi:10.1002/ehf2.12052

Frailty may be a risk marker for adverse outcome in patients with congestive heart failure

ESC Heart Fail. 2015 Sep;2(3):168-170. doi: 10.1002/ehf2.12052. Epub 2015 Jul 28.

Authors

Sumio Yamada¹, Kuniyasu Kamiya², Yuji Kono³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Rehabilitation Science, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan.
² Program in Physical and Occupational Therapy, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan.
³ Department of Rehabilitation, Fujita Health University, Banbuntane Hotokukai Hospital, Nagoya, Japan.

Abstract

Aims: To examine the availability of frailty concept with objective criteria for risk stratification in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF).

Methods and results: Study design was secondary analysis of our CHF cohort. We selected 181 patients who completed clinical assessments and were successfully followed 2-year post discharge. To set frailty criteria, grip strength <26 kg in men and <17 kg in women (weakness) and performance measure for activities of daily living-8 ≧21 points (exhaustion) were defined for predicting 6 min walking distance <300 m (slowness) by the receiver-operating characteristics. During 2 years of follow up, subjects who met all the criteria had a 4 times greater risk of cardiac event compared with those with no frailty criteria.

Conclusion: The findings of present study suggest that frailty criteria may serve as a new clinical marker for management of patients with CHF.

Keywords: 6 minutes-walk distance; Congestive heart failure; elderly; frailty; grip strength; performance measure for activities of daily living-8.