Chewing difficulty and frailty trajectories in Chinese nursing home residents: A prospective cohort study.

Aim: To investigate frailty trajectories in nursing home residents, and to test whether chewing difficulty was a significant factor associated with frailty trajectories.

Methods: This is a 1-year prospective cohort study. Data were collected from 27 nursing home residents in China at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. Latent class growth modeling was used to identify frailty trajectories. Multilevel multinomial logistic regression was used to test the relative risk ratios (RRRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of the chewing difficulty assessed at baseline on frailty trajectories.

Results: In total, 269 nursing home residents were included in the analysis. Three frailty trajectories identified were non-frailty trajectory (n = 181, 67.3%), stable frailty trajectory (n = 52, 19.3%), and progressive frailty trajectory (n = 36, 13.4%). Chewing difficulty was found among 138 (51.3%) nursing home residents. With the non-frailty trajectory group as the reference, residents with chewing difficulty were more likely to demonstrate stable frailty trajectory (RRR = 2.55, 95% CI [1.28-5.11]) or progressive frailty trajectory (RRR = 3.46, 95% CI [1.47-8.15]).

Conclusions: Changes in the frailty of nursing home residents are heterogeneous and chewing difficulty should be assessed and addressed on a routine basis in nursing homes to prevent the deterioration of frailty or reverse it. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2023; 23: 803-808.