| Abstract: | Frailty is a geriatric syndrome characterized by declined physiological reserves and resistance to stressor events that can increase the risks of adverse health outcomes, such as functional disability, hospitalization, and death. Therefore, the prevention and management of frailty is of great importance for both clinicians and elders. The objective of this study was to develop individualized home-based exercise and nutrition interventions for improvement of frailty in the elderly. In this talk, I would like to report to you a study with a four-arm, single-blind, randomized controlled trial, which was conducted at the Miaoli General Hospital in Taiwan. Participants were randomly assigned into one of four study groups for 3-month intervention and 3-month self-maintenance period: control; exercise; nutrition; combination (exercise plus nutrition) group. The frailty phenotypes were quantified by frailty score, which was the primary outcome in this study. A total of 1,160 elderly were invited to participate this study, from whom there were 319 eligible subjects who coincided with the selection criteria. At 6 months, compared to the control group, the exercise (points: -0.23; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.41, -0.05; p < 0.05), nutrition (points: -0.28; 95% CI: -0.46, -0.11; p < 0.01), and combination (points: -0.34; 95% CI: -0.52, -0.16; p < 0.001) groups revealed significant improvement in frailty score change from baseline. Significant improvements also observed in handgrip strength, 10 m gait speed, back scratch, sit and reach, and lower extremity strength in the exercise, nutrition or combination groups, improvement of short form-12 mental component summary score in the nutrition group. The results revealed that individualized home-based exercise and nutrition interventions can help to improve frailty score and physical performances for the elderly with pre-frailty or frailty. In addition, the combination intervention has synergistic effects. |
