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. 2019 Apr;31(4):557-559.
doi: 10.1007/s40520-019-01136-3. Epub 2019 Feb 18.

Polypharmacy and sarcopenia in hospitalized older patients: results of the GLISTEN study

Luca Agosta  1 , Mario Bo  2 , Lara Bianchi  3 , Pasquale Abete  4 , Giuseppe Belelli  5 , Antonio Cherubini  6 , Francesco Corica  7 , Mauro Di Bari  8 , Marcello Maggio  9 , Giovanna Maria Manca  10 , Maria Rosaria Rizzo  11 , Andrea Rossi  12 , Francesco Landi  13 , Stefano Volpato  3 ; GLISTEN Group Investigators
Collaborators, Affiliations
Free article

Polypharmacy and sarcopenia in hospitalized older patients: results of the GLISTEN study

Luca Agosta et al. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2019 Apr.
Free article

Abstract

Background: Recently the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II) showed that polypharmacy is associated with clinically relevant sarcopenia among community-dwelling older persons. Here we report findings from the GLISTEN study about the association of polypharmacy with sarcopenia among older medical in-patients.

Methods: The GLISTEN study investigated prevalence and clinical correlates of sarcopenia in older patients admitted to geriatric and internal medicine acute care wards of 12 Italian hospitals.

Results: In this sample of older medical in-patients with high prevalence of sarcopenia (34.7%) and polypharmacy (70.2%) we did not observe a significant association of polypharmacy with sarcopenia.

Conclusions: Present findings demonstrate that the association of polypharmacy with sarcopenia, observed in the BASE-II study, is not evident in the GLISTEN sample, being our patients significantly older, more multi-morbid, with high prevalence of sarcopenia and polypharmacy, suggesting that this association might vary according to the heterogeneous health, functional, and nutritional characteristics of older people.

Keywords: In-patients; Polypharmacy; Sarcopenia; Skeletal muscle.

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