Activities of daily living at different levels of renal function in elderly hospitalized heart failure patients.

Background: Renal function (RF) and activities of daily living (ADL) are risk factors for heart failure (HF) patients.

Aims: We evaluated differences in motor and cognitive ADL in relation to RF in elderly hospitalized HF patients.

Methods: Participants were selected from 414 consecutive hospitalized HF patients based on certain criteria. We investigated patient characteristics including Functional Independence Measure (FIM) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Subjects were divided into three groups by RF level and analyzed with one-way ANOVA and Chi-square tests and two-way ANCOVA and multiple comparison tests.

Results: Of the 414 patients, 165 met the inclusion criteria (high RF: 41, moderate RF: 84, low RF: 40). There were significant differences between the three groups in age, eGFR, hemoglobin level, mobility, cognitive function, and length of hospital stay (p < 0.05). Motor FIM showed an interaction between term and group, and cognitive FIM showed a main effect on the group (p < 0.05). In the multiple comparisons, motor FIM of all groups indicated significant recovery, but it was significantly lower after 1 week in the low RF versus moderate/high RF groups (p < 0.05). Cognitive FIM showed no significant recovery in the low RF group; the FIM score after 2 weeks was significantly lower than that in the moderate/high RF groups (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: In elderly hospitalized HF patients, the motor ADL recovery process in the low RF group was delayed compared to the high RF group. Cognitive ADL in hospitalized HF patients is difficult to recover, especially in those with low RF.