Frailty and cognitive performance of elderly in the context of social vulnerability

Abstract

Elderly who live in the context of social vulnerability have lower education and socioeconomic status. Objective: To analyze cognitive performance as a factor associated with frailty status in elderly living in contexts of social vulnerability. Methods: An exploratory, comparative, cross-sectional study using a quantitative method was conducted with elderly people registered at Social Assistance Reference Centers. A semi-structured interview, the Edmonton Frail Scale and Montreal Cognitive Assessment were applied. The project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee. To analyze the data, a logistic regression was performed considering two groups (frail and non-frail). Results: 247 elderly individuals participated in the study, with a mean age of 68.52 (±SD =7.28) years and education of 1-4 years (n=133). All the elderly evaluated resided in vulnerable regions. Regarding frailty, 91 (36.8%) showed frailty at some level (mild, moderate or severe) and 216 (87.4%) had cognitive impairment. On the regression analysis, frailty was associated with number of diseases (OR:1.60; 95%CI: 1.28-1.99) and cognition (OR:0.93; 95%CI: 0.89-0.98). Conclusion: Identifying level of frailty and cognition in socially vulnerable elderly reinforces the need for early detection in both these conditions by the public services that provide care for this population with a focus on prevention.