Frequency of sarcopenia and associated factors among hospitalized elderly patients

BACKGROUND: Sarcopenia is an important public health problem that affects mainly elders, and has negative consequences, such as disability and even death. Due to the lack of studies evaluating sarcopenia in elderly persons hospitalized in Brazil, the aim of the present study was to describe the frequency of sarcopenia and associated factors among elders in a hospital in the city of Salvador - Brazil. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 110 hospitalized elderly patients in a multi-specialty hospital in Salvador-BA, Brazil. Inclusion criteria: were elders aged ≥60 years between the first and fifth day of hospitalization; who were able to walk without external assistance; with medical permission to walk, and who did not take vasoactive and inotropic drugs. The diagnosis of sarcopenia was determined by combining the reduction in skeletal muscle mass with muscle weakness (women, <20 kg; men, <30 kg) and/or poor physical performance (gait speed ≤0.8 m/s). To obtain reduced skeletal muscle mass, the skeletal muscle mass index ≤6.37 kg/m(2) for women and ≤8.90 kg/m(2) for men was used. Cognitive function, Charlson index, admission profile (clinical and surgical), smoking, falls suffered in the last year and physical inactivity prior to admission were also evaluated. The frequency of sarcopenia was described in percentages with their respective confidence intervals and logistic regression was performed for multivariate analysis of factors associated with sarcopenia. RESULTS: Among the 110 patients included, the frequency of sarcopenia was 21.8%, with 10.0% being of the severe type. There was a predominance of clinical profile (59.1%), such as heart disease (20.0%), pneumonia (13.6%) and skin infections (9.1%), with a Charlson index of 5.4 ± 1.8. The factors associated with sarcopenia were age (OR = 1.14; 95% CI = 1.06 to 1.23), clinical profile on admission (OR = 5.15; 95% CI = 1.16–22.9) and smoking (OR = 7.8; 95% CI = 1.53–39.9). CONCLUSIONS: The frequency of sarcopenia in elderly hospitalized patients was high (1 in 5 elderly) and anthropometric equation can be a viable and inexpensive alternative to screening and programming intervention in this population.