ArticleJournal of the American Medical Directors Association2020
Weakness May Have a Causal Association With Early Mortality in Older Americans: A Matched Cohort Analysis.
Article in Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Contribution of Sport Type to the Association Between Handgrip Strength and Morbidity/Mortality: Future Follow-up Study and Possible Mechanisms.Sports medicine - open · 2026Review
- Comparison of Kinesiophobia, Upper Limb Function, and Grip Strength in Patients with Pacemakers and Coronary Artery Disease.Anatolian journal of cardiology · 2026Article
- Impact of physical activity and frailty on mortality and utilization among middle-aged and older adults in South Korea.The Journal of frailty & aging · 2026Article
- Multi-Frequency Electrical Impedance Myography as a Predictor of Muscle Function in Older Adults.Muscle & nerve · 2025Article
- Mental exertion causes impairments in multifinger force deficit during a handgrip strength task in older adults.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2025Article
- The Predictive Power of the Cystatin C-Creatinine Score in Assessing Frailty.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2025Article
- Longitudinal association of grip strength with cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in older urban Lithuanian population.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Neuromuscular junction transmission failure in aging and sarcopenia: The nexus of the neurological and muscular systems.Ageing research reviews · 2023Review
- Article
- Assessing Additional Characteristics of Muscle Function With Digital Handgrip Dynamometry and Accelerometry: Framework for a Novel Handgrip Strength Protocol.Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · 2021Article
- The Associations of Handgrip Strength and Leg Extension Power Asymmetry on Incident Recurrent Falls and Fractures in Older Men.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2021Article
- From cognitive to motor impairment and from sarcopenia to cognitive impairment: a bidirectional pathway towards frailty and disability.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2021Article
- Association Between Low Handgrip Strength and 90-Day Mortality Among Older Chinese Inpatients: A National Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2021Article
- Potential Utility of Electrical Impedance Myography in Evaluating Age-Related Skeletal Muscle Function Deficits.Frontiers in physiology · 2021Review
- What are the association patterns between handgrip strength and adverse health conditions? A topical review.SAGE open medicine · 2020Review
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesQuantifying the association between muscle weakness and mortality with carefully matched cohorts will help to better establish the impact of weakness on premature death. We used a matched cohort analysis in a national sample of older Americans to determine if those who were weak had a higher risk for mortality compared with control groups with incrementally higher strength capacities.
designLongitudinal panel.
settingDetailed interviews that included physical measures were conducted in person, whereas core interviews were often performed over the telephone.
participantsData from 19,729 Americans aged at least 50 years from the 2006-2014 waves of the Health and Retirement Study were analyzed. MEASURES: A handgrip dynamometer was used to assess handgrip strength (HGS) in each participant. Men with HGS <26 kg were considered weak, ≥26 kg were considered not weak, and ≥32 kg were considered strong. Women with HGS <16 kg were classified as weak, ≥16 kg were classified as not-weak, and ≥20 kg were classified as strong. The National Death Index and postmortem interviews determined the date of death. The greedy matching algorithm was used to match cohorts.
resultsOf the 1077 weak and not-weak matched pairs, 401 weak (37.2%) and 296 not-weak (27.4%) older Americans died over an average 4.4 ± 2.5-year follow-up. There were 392 weak (37.0%) and 243 strong (22.9%) persons who died over a mean 4.5 ± 2.5-year follow-up from the 1057 weak and strong matched pairs. Those in the weak cohort had a 1.40 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.19, 1.64] and 1.54 (CI 1.30, 1.83) higher hazard for mortality relative to persons in the not-weak and strong control cohorts, respectively. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Our findings may indicate a causal association between muscle weakness and mortality in older Americans. Health care providers should include measures of HGS as part of routine health assessments and discuss the health risks of muscle weakness with their patients.
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