Association between frailty and postherpetic neuralgia in the older adult with herpes zoster.

Introduction: Chronic pain is closely related to frailty.

Methods: A total of 300 older adult patients diagnosed with HZ were selected and admitted to our hospital in 2024. A basic data questionnaire gathered baseline information, and the FRAIL scale was employed to evaluate their initial frailty status. Patients who were non-frail at baseline were followed up for 3 months. They were categorized into the PHN group and the non-PHN group based on the occurrence of neuropathic pain during follow-up. Diverse scales were employed to evaluate frailty, nutritional status, anxiety, and depression among participants. The Chi-square or Kruskal-Wallis tests were employed to compare the two groups. The logistic regression model was undertaken to explore the impact of PHN on frailty.

Results: Among the 300 older adult patients with HZ who satisfied the inclusion criteria, follow-up data were collected from 215 patients, comprising 85 cases in the PHN group and 130 cases in the non-PHN group. A prospective analysis of the 215 baseline non-frail patients showed that the incidence of frailty in older HZ patients was 14.9%. Univariate analysis revealed that the distributions of lesion site, lesion area, depression status, anxiety status, COPD, and nutritional score were statistically significant between the two groups (χ = 6.127, 4.846, 13.316, 12.967, 6.234, = 2.592, < 0.05). Nevertheless, the distributions of age, gender, marital status, education level, hypertension, and diabetes were not statistically significant ( > 0.05). Binary logistic regression analysis indicated that, after comprehensive adjustment for age, gender, lesion site, lesion area, depression status, anxiety status, COPD, and nutritional score, patients with PHN exhibited an higher risk of frailty compared to the non-PHN cohort (22 cases, OR = 3.279, 95% CI = 1.327-8.105; = 0.010).

Conclusion: Postherpetic neuralgia increases the risk of frailty and is a significant factor influencing the progression of frailty in the older adult.