JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Frailty is a complex syndrome characterized by diminished physiological reserves, resulting in increased vulnerability among older adults. Developing precise and accessible tools for frailty diagnosis is crucial for enabling early intervention and management of this condition. The Frailty Trait Scale-12 (FTS-12), which integrates multiple health domains, provides a comprehensive measure of frailty. Additionally, routine biochemical and hematological parameters have been shown to correlate with frailty and may serve as valuable predictors of frailty risk.

Objective:

To model frailty risk by utilizing FTS-12 scores alongside biochemical and hematological data, with the goal of identifying key predictive variables and exploring sex-specific patterns.

Methods:

This study analyzed data from a population-based cohort of 1,485 individuals aged 65 years or older, drawn from the Toledo Study for Healthy Aging (TSHA). Multiple and logistic regression analyses were employed to investigate the relationships between biochemical and hematological parameters and the FTS-12 score. Predictive models were developed separately for women and men, incorporating both single and composite risk factors. Model performance was evaluated using correlation coefficients, coefficients of determination, Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), log-likelihood values, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.

Results:

The predictive models accounted for approximately 40% of the variability in FTS-12 scores, revealing distinct risk factors for each sex. Gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), albumin, and age emerged as critical predictors of frailty. The predictive capability of several composite risk factor functions was also highly significant. Correlations between observed and predicted FTS-12 scores were moderately strong, with values of 0.621 for women and 0.615 for men. Logistic regression models demonstrated robust classification performance for high frailty probability, achieving ROC-AUC values of 0.799 for women and 0.824 for men.

Conclusions:

Biochemical and hematological profiles provide moderate predictive power for frailty levels as measured by FTS-12, emphasizing the importance of sex-specific factors in frailty risk assessment. These findings highlight the potential to refine predictive models further, paving the way for improved frailty evaluation and targeted intervention strategies.