ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences2014
Brain pathology contributes to simultaneous change in physical frailty and cognition in old age.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 112 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
112 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 207 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of Frailty Trajectories: Their Shape and Influencing Factors.The Gerontologist · 2021Pooled it
- A Coordinated Multi-study Analysis of the Longitudinal Association Between Handgrip Strength and Cognitive Function in Older Adults.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2021Pooled it
- Grip Strength and the Risk of Cognitive Decline and Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Cohort Studies.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Frailty syndrome and cognitive impairment in older adults: systematic review of the literature.Revista latino-americana de enfermagem · 2019Pooled it
- Frailty as a Predictor of Cognitive Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2019Pooled it
- Shared biological pathways for frailty and cognitive impairment: A systematic review.Ageing research reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Late-Life Vascular Risk Score in Association With Postmortem Cerebrovascular Disease Brain Pathologies.Stroke · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Sensorimotor function as an early marker of cognitive decline and alzheimer's biomarker burden.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Frailty, trajectories of frailty, and cognitive impairment: evidence from five longitudinal cohort studies.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Speech as a dynamic biomarker of physical aging: a longitudinal study.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Proteome-wide association study of cortical proteins that may provide resilience for late-life disability.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2026Article
- Spontaneous speech enables scalable digital phenotyping of physical functional deficits in aging.npj aging · 2026Article
- Article
- The association between amyloid-beta deposition on dual-task gait performance is partially moderated by cognitive functions in healthy older adults.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The cross-sectional relationship of physical frailty and cognitive impairment in older Poles: analysis of the PolSenior2 data.European geriatric medicine · 2025Article
- Identifying motor resilience proteins associated with motor decline in older adults.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2025Article
- Associations of neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular neuropathology with frailty in a diverse sample.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2025Article
- A secondary analysis of cortical atrophy and plasma amyloid β patterns in older patients with cognitive frailty undergoing elective surgery.BMC geriatrics · 2025Article
- Frailty in motion: Amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease cohorts display heterogeneity in multimorbidity classification and longitudinal transitions.Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD · 2025Article
52 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveFirst, we tested the hypothesis that the rate of change of physical frailty and cognitive function in older adults are correlated. Next, we examined if their rates of change are associated with the same brain pathologies.
methodsAbout 2,167 older adults participating in the Religious Orders Study and the Rush Memory and Aging Project had annual clinical evaluations. Bivariate random coefficient models were used to estimate simultaneously the rates of change in both frailty and cognition, and the correlation of change was characterized by a joint distribution of the random effects. Then, we examined whether postmortem indices from deceased were associated with the rate of change of frailty and cognition.
resultsDuring an average follow-up of 6 years, frailty worsened by 0.09 unit/y and cognition declined by 0.08 unit/y. Most individuals showed worsening frailty and cognition (82.8%); 17% showed progressive frailty alone and <1% showed only cognitive decline. The rates of change of frailty and cognition were strongly correlated (ρ = -0.73, p < .001). Among deceased (N = 828), Alzheimer's disease pathology, macroinfarcts, and nigral neuronal loss showed independent associations with the rate of change in both frailty and cognition (all ps < .001). In these models, demographics explained about 9% of the variation in individual rate of change in frailty, and neuropathologies explained about 8%. In contrast, demographics and neuropathologies accounted for 2% and 30%, respectively, of the variance in the cognitive decline.
conclusionThe rates of change in frailty and cognition are strongly correlated and this may be due in part because they share a common pathologic basis.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.