Association of trajectories of physical frailty status and incident disability in community-dwelling older adults: A longitudinal study.

Aim: Frailty is a mediator between robustness and functional disability. This study examined the association between remission of frailty and incident disability.

Methods: The present study analyzed longitudinal data from 2601 community-dwelling older adults who were aged ≥65 years (mean age 70.8 ± 4.5 years, 1307 women [50.2%]) using the Cardiovascular Health Study criteria. Next, examining changes in status from wave 1 (2011) to wave 2 (2015), participants were categorized into a frailty group (those who remained or became frail), a remission of frailty group (those who were frail and became robust) and a robust group (those who remained robust). Cox proportional hazard modeling was used to determine the change of frailty status from wave 1 to wave 2, as well as incident disability at wave 2 (median duration 35 months).

Results: Of those participants who started in the frailty or prefrailty groups at wave 1, 15.8% had an improved frailty status at the 47-month follow up. After adjusting for covariates at baseline, the Cox proportional hazard regression models showed that the hazard ratio of disability among participants who remained robust was significantly less than for those who were in the frailty group (hazard ratio 0.515; 95% confidence interval 0.333-0.796).

Conclusion: Our data confirm that among those whose frailty status improved, the risk of disability was lower than for those who remained frail. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2025; ••: ••-••.