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Meta-Analysis
. 2022 Apr 27;14(9):1812.
doi: 10.3390/nu14091812.

Association between Dysphagia and Frailty in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Ru-Yung Yang  1 , An-Yun Yang  2   3 , Yong-Chen Chen  3   4 , Shyh-Dye Lee  5   6 , Shao-Huai Lee  7 , Jeng-Wen Chen  2   3   8   9
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Association between Dysphagia and Frailty in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Ru-Yung Yang et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Background: Increasing bodies of epidemiological evidence indicate potential associations between dysphagia and the risk of frailty in older adults. We hypothesized that older adults with symptoms of dysphagia might have a higher prevalence of frailty or prefrailty than those without dysphagia.

Methods: We systematically searched the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases for relevant studies published through 20 April 2022. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that examined the associations between dysphagia and the existence of frailty or prefrailty in community-dwelling, facility-dwelling, or hospitalized adults aged 50 years or older were synthesized. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to evaluate study quality.

Results: The meta-analysis comprised 12 cohorts, including 5,503,543 non-frailty participants and 735,303 cases of frailty or prefrailty. Random-effect meta-analysis demonstrated a significant association between dysphagia and the risk of frailty and prefrailty (OR, 3.24; 95% CI, 2.51-4.20). In addition, we observed consistent results across the subgroups and heterogeneity assessments.

Conclusions: We propose including dysphagia assessment as a critical factor in the cumulative deficit model for identifying frailty in older adults. Understanding dysphagia and the potential role of nutritional supplements in older adults may lead to improved strategies for preventing, delaying, or mitigating frailty.

Keywords: aging; deglutition; dysphagia; frailty; prefrailty.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow Diagram of the Study Selection Process.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Random-effects meta-analysis results of the association between dysphagia and the risks of frailty and prefrailty. (A) Results obtained when all observational studies were included in the meta-analysis. (B) Results obtained when all observational cohorts except for those of Albani, Cohen, Gonzalez–Fernandez, and Tanaka were included in the meta-analysis [22,24,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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