Relationships between orthostatic hypotension, frailty, falling and mortality in elderly care home residents

BMC Geriatrics

Table 1 Comparison between frail and non-frail individuals and between fallers and non-fallers (n = 116)

	All	Non-Frail	Frail	p	Non-Faller	Faller	p
N	116	37	79	–	40	70	–
FI-MDS	0.36 ± 0.01	0.18 ± 0.01	0.44 ± 0.01	< 0.0001	0.31 ± 0.02	0.40 + 0.02	0.002
Age (years)	84.2 ± 0.9	82.9 ± 1.7	84.8 ± 1.1	0.33	85.0 ± 1.3	84.7 ± 1.1	0.89
Male (%)	44.0	48.6	41.8	0.31	45.0	40.0	0.69
Retrospective Falls/Year	2.36 ± 0.36	1.03 ± 0.3	2.94 ± 0.5	0.001	0 ± 0	3.71 ± 0.5	< 0.0001
Prospective Falls/Year	3.26 ± 0.50	1.94 ± 0.4	3.84 ± 0.7	0.02	1.71 ± 0.37	4.10 ± 0.73	0.004
Supine SAP (mmHg)^a	138.1 ± 3.4	138.9 ± 4.1	137.4 ± 5.4	0.83	137.2 ± 5.3	140.4 ± 5.1	0.66
Supine DAP (mmHg)^a	69.3 ± 1.6	66.8 ± 2.5	71.5 ± 2.1	0.15	67.8 ± 2.4	71.0 ± 2.5	0.36
Initial HR response (bpm)^a	6.7 ± 1.2	+ 5.5 ± 1.1	+ 8.2 ± 2.2	0.21	5.5 ± 1.1	7.9 ± 2.2	0.33
Recovery SAP (%)^a	101.5 ± 2.1	105.5 ± 2.9	97.9 ± 2.8	0.06	104.3 ± 3.8	99.8 ± 2.3	0.31
Initial ∆SAP (mmHg)^a	−12.30 ± 2.8	−6.1 ± 3.3	−17.8 ± 4.2	0.03	−6.0 ± 4.0	−15.8 ± 3.9	0.08
Consensus ∆SAP (mmHg)^a	−17.2 ± 2.8	−11.5 ± 3.3	−22.7 ± 4.3	0.04	−11.2 ± 3.9	− 21.5 ± 4.2	0.07
Delayed ∆SAP (mmHg)^a	−15.7 ± 2.44	−14.4 ± 2.0	−16.9 ± 4.4	0.61	−12.4 ± 3.7	−19.4 ± 3.7	0.19
3-year Mortality (months)	22.6 ± 1.1	27.1 ± 1.9	20.5 ± 1.3	0.006	21.8 ± 1.9	23.1 ± 1.4	0.57

Abbreviations: SAP systolic arterial pressure, DAP diastolic arterial pressure, HR heart rate, FI-MDS, minimum data set derived frailty index. ^asample size for these variables, n = 55 (non-frail n = 25; frail n = 30; non-faller n = 21; faller n = 34). Bold data indicate statistically significant differences. Italicised data indicate differences that did not quite achieve statistical significance
Frail individuals had higher retrospective and prospective falling rates, larger initial and consensus declines in systolic arterial pressure, and higher 3-year mortality than non-frail individuals. Retrospective fallers were more frail and had higher prospective falling rates than retrospective non-fallers. The outcome of mortality was considered met in participants who had died after 36 months (n = 69) or who had been discharged to a higher level of care (n = 6)

ISSN: 1471-2318