Study Reveals Physical Frailty's Role in Early Dementia Detection

Sydney (ANTARA) - Physical frailty may hold the key to earlier diagnosis of dementia, accelerating the onset of the disease, particularly in people who show few or even no signs of the condition.

A study led by Australia’s University of Queensland (UQ) found that physical frailty can serve as an important independent clinical marker to help diagnose and potentially manage dementia, said David Ward of UQ’s Frazer Institute in a statement released on Wednesday (22/7).

“Our findings show that older individuals experiencing physical frailty are diagnosed with dementia two to three years earlier than those with lower levels of frailty,” said Ward, senior author of the study published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry.

People considered physically frail but who had no brain abnormalities typically associated with dementia developed the condition five to six years earlier, Ward said.

The research team from Australia, the Netherlands, Finland and Canada analysed 24 years of data from more than 1,600 participants in the United States-based Memory and Aging Project.

They found that the link between physical frailty and earlier dementia diagnosis was consistent across the groups studied, although the effect appeared stronger in men.

The researchers said genetic markers, including the APOE ε4 gene variant associated with a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, did not influence the study’s findings.

Ward said routine assessment of physical frailty could help slow the progression of dementia.

He also added that physical frailty can often be prevented and managed through exercise, good nutrition and social interaction.