Frailty syndrome and cognitive impairment in older adults: systematic review of the literature

Abstract

Objective: to synthesize the knowledge about the association of frailty syndrome and cognitive impairment in older adults. Method: the Joanna Briggs Institute’s systematic review of etiology and risk factors was adopted. The search for the studies was conducted by two independent reviewers in the databases MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL and LILACS and by manual search was performed by tow reviewers independently. The measures of association Odds Ratio and Relative Risk were used in the meta-analysis. The software R version 3.4.3 and the meta-analysis package Metafor 2.0 were used for figure analysis. Results: three studies identified the association of frailty syndrome and cognitive impairment through Odds Ratio values show that frail older adults are 1.4 times more likely to present cognitive impairment than non-frail older adults. Four studies analyzed the association through the measure of Relative Risk and found no statistical significance, and four studies used mean values. Conclusion: despite of the methodological differences of the studies and the lack of definition of an exact proportion in the cause and effect relationship, most studies indicate Frailty Syndrome as a trigger for Cognitive decline.