New paper: Identifying probable sarcopenia in early old age

Sarcopenia is the accelerated loss of muscle function and mass and typically occurs at older ages. Probable sarcopenia - as outlined in the recent European consensus definition - is present when a patient has either weak grip strength, a slow time to complete five chair rises, or both.

In a new analysis of data from the MRC National Survey of Health and Development with participants aged 69, we found that probable sarcopenia was common, with almost one in five participants affected. Interestingly we saw that there was limited overlap between those with weak grip strength and slow chair rises, as shown in the figure. The presence of any difficulties on the SARC-F questionnaire (which looks at difficulty in day-to-day tasks such as walking across a room), polypharmacy, lower body osteoarthritis and physical inactivity were all predictors of probable sarcopenia. We recommended that patients with any of these risk factors should be prioritised for assessment of probable sarcopenia.

You can read the full paper here. 

Last modified: Tue, 24 Mar 2020 14:46:40 GMT