Recovery of functional impairment after acute illness and mortality: one-year follow-up study.

Background: Functional status in older people is a dynamic situation, which makes it necessary to evaluate functional capacity at different times to determinate their prognostic value.

Objective: To examine the association between functional status (baseline and change after acute illness) and mortality and functional changes at 1 year.

Methods: Hospital-based prospective longitudinal cohort study of all patients over 65 years old, admitted for multidisciplinary treatment of functional impairment after acute illness in a medium-stay unit (post-acute geriatric unit) of a teaching hospital ascribed to the Spanish National Health Service from Spain during 15 consecutive months.