Publications by authors named "Varan H"

Objectives: There are no studies examining the prevalence of social frailty and associated factors in low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of social frailty and identify the contributing factors among older adults in Türkiye.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 570 participants aged 65 and older, all outpatients at a geriatric clinic.

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Background: Chronic inflammation is increasingly recognized as a crucial contributor to sarcopenia pathogenesis, but accurate diagnosis remains a challenge.

Aim: Our study aims to investigate the relationship between sarcopenia and the Systemic Immune-Inflammation Index (SII), a comprehensive indicator of inflammation.

Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled 632 patients.

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Purpose: The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential of rectus femoris shear wave elastography (RF-SWE) in assessing its impact on frailty and physical performance parameters, using a comparative analysis with rectus femoris muscle thickness (RF-MT).

Methods: A total of 149 participants aged 60 and above were included in this research. All participants underwent a comprehensive geriatric assessment, frailty status assessment (using the frailty phenotype [FFP]), and evaluation of physical performance parameters (utilizing the short physical performance battery score [SPPB] and handgrip strength measurement).

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Backgruound: This study investigated the risk of frailty in older adults with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) and the effect of thyroid- stimulating hormone (TSH) levels on frailty.

Methods: This single-center, cross-sectional study included 70 DTC patients aged ≥60 years with stable TSH levels during the previous year while receiving levothyroxine. Frailty was assessed using the fried frailty phenotype (FFP).

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Background: Sarcopenia, characterized by the loss of skeletal muscle, is assessed using appendicular skeletal muscle mass indices (ASMI). Various international groups propose different ASMI thresholds for assessing sarcopenia. However, the optimal ASMI that correlates best with physical performance measures in older Turkish adults remains unexplored.

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Purpose: Current measures of frailty often rely on subjective assessments or complex scoring systems. This study aims to investigate the utility of a novel anthropometric measure, the Weight-Adjusted Waist Index (WWI), as a simple and objective predictive marker for frailty in older adults.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 847 patients aged 65 years and older.

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Purpose: The Achilles tendon (AT) is the largest and strongest tendon in the human body, and its elasticity is known to be affected by the aging process. However, the relation between AT stiffness and frailty in older individuals remains uncertain. This study aims to explore the potential of Achilles tendon shear wave elastography (AT-SWE) as a tool for assessing physical frailty in older adults.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study examined the prevalence of sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass and strength) in Turkish women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and its relationship to disease activity.
  • Out of 82 SLE patients, over half exhibited probable sarcopenia, while about 13% were diagnosed with sarcopenia, indicated by significantly lower hand grip strength compared to healthy controls.
  • The research concluded that while sarcopenia is common in this population, there was no direct link between sarcopenia and the severity of SLE, suggesting the need for regular assessments of muscle strength in clinical practice.
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  • The study investigates the relationship between the thickness of the adductor pollicis muscle (APMT) and the diagnosis of sarcopenia in older adults using ultrasound.
  • A total of 245 patients aged 65 and older were assessed, with those having specific medical conditions or using certain medications excluded.
  • Results showed that APMT, among other factors, declined significantly in patients with sarcopenia, indicating that APMT can serve as a reliable anthropometric marker for diagnosing sarcopenia in this demographic.
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Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates the use of adductor pollicis muscle thickness (APMT) as a reliable and easy-to-measure indicator for physical frailty in older adults.
  • It involved 589 patients, where comprehensive assessments showed that APMT, along with other measures like handgrip strength and gait speed, appeared lower in frail individuals compared to non-frail ones.
  • The findings suggest that APMT can be a valuable tool for assessing frailty risk, with a suggested cut-off value of 18.5 mm for identifying those at risk.
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Background And Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between the quantity and type of macronutrients in the diet and frailty.

Material And Methods: A total of 106 patients were included in the study. Exclusion criteria included patients with pacemakers, edema, advanced dementia, acute infectious and inflammatory disease, and those using oral or enteral nutritional supplements.

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Purpose: Sleep disturbance is among the most important geriatric syndromes, and its evaluation is part of the routine comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA). Previous studies have demonstrated that older patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have poorer sleep quality than younger control patients. However, there needs to be more data on the sleep quality of older patients with RA with age-matched controls.

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Background: Frailty is an important, multidimensional geriatric syndrome defined as increased vulnerability to stressors. Fried frailty phenotype (FFP) is one of the most widely used models to define physical frailty. The aim of this study is to investigate the crosscultural validity and reliability of Fried frailty phenotype (FFP) in older Turkish population.

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: This study aims to compare the predictive value of all comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) parameters with the predictive value of frailty assessment (with Edmonton Frailty Scale (EFS) and Fried Frailty Index (FFI)) for long-term mortality, in older adults.: A total of 967 patients were included, consecutively. At the first admission, age, gender, comorbidities, number of drugs, and laboratory values of the patients were recorded.

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Background: The Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) has developed new criteria for diagnosing patients with malnutrition. The aims of this study were to investigate the prevalence of malnutrition according to the GLIM criteria, Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), and Nutrition Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002) and their association with long-term mortality in patients hospitalized for acute illnesses.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed in a sample of 231 patients with different comorbidities hospitalized for acute illnesses in medical or surgical wards.

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Background: Cutoff values of cognitive screen tests vary according to age and educational levels.

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the accuracy and determine cutoffs for 3 short cognitive screening instruments: the Mini-Mental State Examination, Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and Quick Mild Cognitive Impairment Screen-Turkish version (Qmci-TR), in older adults with low literacy in Turkey.

Methods: In all 321 patients, 133 with subjective cognitive complaints (SCC), 88 amnestic-type mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), and 100 with probable Alzheimer disease (AD) with a median of 5 years education were included.

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Background: Studies in mice have suggested that sarcopenic animals may have atrophic diaphragmatic muscles; however, to date, no clinical studies are available.

Aims: To investigate whether the diaphragmatic thickness is affected in older patients with sarcopenia and if this is associated with impaired respiratory functions.

Methods: Thirty sarcopenic and 30 non-sarcopenic elderly patients aged over 65 were included.

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Objective: Reliable and pratique methods are essential for rapid and accurate determination of post thawing viability of peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) graft before hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. In this study, Trypan Blue (TP) Eosin Y (EO), and Acridine-orange-ethidium bromide (AO/EB), which are of the methods commonly used for the assessment of viability in clinic practice, were compared with the flow cytometry-7AAD (7AAD) method, which is a more sensitive method. The aim of this study is to examine which method evaluates postthawing viability in a more compatible manner with 7AAD.

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Background: Malnutrition in hospitalized patients is a serious problem and is associated with a number of adverse outcomes. The Nutritional Risk Screening-2002 (NRS-2002) tool was designed to identify patients at nutrition risk. The validation of NRS-2002 compared with detailed clinical assessment of nutrition status was not studied before in hospitalized Turkish adults.

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Background: The novel molecule endocan, which is released by endothelium and is regulated by proangiogenic and proinflammatory cytokines, may have a role in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer disease (AD). The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between serum endocan levels and AD.

Methods: A total of 134 patients (47 AD, 42 amnestic mild cognitive impairment [aMCI], and 45 control patients) 65 years of age and older were recruited in this study.

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Background: Masked hypertension is described as high ambulatory blood pressure measurements (ABPM) where office blood pressure measurements are normal. Effect of hypertension on cognitive functions is well known. However, the effect of masked hypertension on cognitive functions is unclear.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to validate the Turkish version of the Quick Mild Cognitive Impairment (Q mci-TR) screen with a focus on older adults experiencing memory loss.
  • A total of 100 patients aged 65 and older were assessed, comparing the Q mci-TR to two other cognitive tests, revealing it was more accurate in distinguishing subjective memory complaints from actual cognitive impairment.
  • The findings suggest that the Q mci-TR is a reliable and effective tool for identifying mild cognitive impairment and dementia in the Turkish population.
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