• Journal of Korean Medical Science
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• v.33 no.51
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• pp.332.1-332.8
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• 2018

Background: The trend of aging society is occurring globally, and with it, one of the health problems that is emerging is frailty. Efforts are being made to account for the increasing prevalence of frailty, and various modifiable factors are being considered in regards to frailty. Because social contact has shown beneficial effects in terms of health in previous studies, it is increasingly being considered in relation to frailty. The purpose of this study was to assess the association of different types of social contact with frailty status. Methods: A total of 1,200 Korean elders aged 70-84 years old were included in the study. Using Fried's Cardiovascular Health Study index to categorize the frailty status, the relationship between frailty status and frequency of contact (i.e., with family members, friends, or neighbors) was analyzed using multinomial logistic regression accounting for confounders. Results: Adjusting for all covariates, frequency of contact with friends was the most statistically significant. Less frequent contact was associated with a significantly higher odds of pre-frailty: monthly (odds ratio [OR], 2.02; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.27-3.20), and rarely (OR, 1.87; 95% CI, 1.17-2.99), with daily contact group as reference. Also, those contacting friends monthly (OR, 5.04; 95% CI, 2.29-11.08) or rarely (OR, 3.23; 95% CI, 1.58-6.61) were more likely to be frail compared to the daily group. Conclusion: Frequency of social contact, especially with friends, is strongly associated with frailty.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.725-739
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• 2022

This study conducted with 268 female elderly who visited welfare center and senior citizen center in Changwon city to identify the dietary status according to social frailty stage using nutrition quotient for elderly (NQ-E). As a result of the survey, 75.0% of the elderly had no nutrition education. The elderly in social frailty stage was 43.7%, pre-frail was 35.1%, and robust was 21.2%. The scores of NQ-E (61.65), balance (47.78), moderation (86.18), and dietary behavior (55.23) were within the medium-high grade, while diversity (48.37) was within the medium-low grade. Among the balance factor item, there was a significant difference only in the frequency of fruit intake according to social frailty stage (p<0.05). Among the diversity factor item, there were significant differences in vegetable intake (p<0.05) and the rate of eating alone (p<0.001) according to social frailty stage. Among the dietary behavior factor item, there were significant differences in whether to strive for a healthy diet (p<0.05), exercise time and depression (p<0.001), and subjective recognition rate of health (p<0.01) according to social frailty stage. Based on these results, education focusing on various food intake is needed, and continuous support from the government and local governments is needed to connect the social support network of the elderly and support programs to prevent them from going to social frailty stage.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.891-903
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• 2018

This study investigated the relation between frailty, social support, and health-related quality of life to provide basic data to improve the health-related quality of life of old-old elderly who are a high risk group for frailty. For this descriptive study, one-on-one interviews with structured questionnaires were conducted for elderly aged 75 years or older at elderly welfare facilities in K county from March 01 to 31 in 2016, and a total of 211 elderly were interviewed. The collected data were analyzed by t-test, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and path analysis using SPSS/WIN and AMOS 18.0 program. For the differences between the age groups, those aged over 80 years had a significantly higher frailty (t=-2.51, p=.013) and a lower health-related quality of life than those aged below 80 years (t=3.29, p=.001); however, there was no significant difference in social support (t=1.28, p=.201). The correlation between frailty, social support and health-related quality of life showed that as frailty became higher, social support (r=-.21, p=.003) and health-related quality of life (r=-.65, p<.001) were significantly lower, and health-related quality of life was significantly higher with a higher social support (r=.18, p=.010). As a result of investigating the mediating effects of frailty between social support and health-related quality of life, social support had a significant direct effect on frailty (${\beta}=-.21$, p=.016) and frailty had a significant direct effect on health-related quality of life (${\beta}=-.06$, p=.004); however, social support had no significant direct effect on health-related quality of life (${\beta}=.00$, p=.562). Social support had a significant indirect effect on health-related quality of life and a mediating effect on frailty (${\beta}=.01$, p=.012); therefore, the full mediation effect of frailty between social support and health-related quality of life was verified. Social support prevents frailty, and improving frailty enhances health-related quality of life. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a multifactorial frailty prevention program that includes age-specific social support strategies to improve the health-related quality of life in old-old elderly.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.429-439
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• 2018

Purpose: The aim of this study is to identify core keyword of frailty research in the past 35 years to understand the structure of knowledge of frailty. Methods: 10,367 frailty articles published between 1981 and April 2016 were retrieved from Web of Science. Keywords from these articles were extracted using Bibexcel and social network analysis was conducted with the occurrence network using NetMiner program. Results: The top five keywords with a high frequency of occurrence include 'disability', 'nursing home', 'sarcopenia', 'exercise', and 'dementia'. Keywords were classified by subheadings of MeSH and the majority of them were included under the healthcare and physical dimensions. The degree centralities of the keywords were arranged in the order of 'long term care' (0.55), 'gait' (0.42), 'physical activity' (0.42), 'quality of life' (0.42), and 'physical performance' (0.38). The betweenness centralities of the keywords were listed in the order of depression' (0.32), 'quality of life' (0.28), 'home care' (0.28), 'geriatric assessment' (0.28), and 'fall' (0.27). The cluster analysis shows that the frailty research field is divided into seven clusters: aging, sarcopenia, inflammation, mortality, frailty index, older people, and physical activity. Conclusion: After reviewing previous research in the 35 years, it has been found that only physical frailty and frailty related to medicine have been emphasized. Further research in psychological, cognitive, social, and environmental frailty is needed to understand frailty in a multifaceted and integrative manner.

• The Korean Journal of Rehabilitation Nursing
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.67-73
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• 2008

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to review and identify the meaning and components of the concept, Frailty. Method: We conducted literature review of studies that concluded the word of 'frail' or 'frailty between 1980 and 2008, and used MEDLINE, CINAHL database to select the articles. Results: Frailty is defined as a concept with multidomains, which are physical, cognitive, psychological, social. Critical characteristics of Frailty include multidominal deficiency, combined accumulation, diminished ability to keep up the independence of daily living, states beyond one's reserve capacity, dynamic relativity, proximity to adverse health outcome, aggregated symptoms. Frailty is caused by decreased physical activity, loss of sensory function, Chronic symptoms or signs, relationship with Caregiver, social isolation. Moreover, Frail elderly is at risk of falls and institutionalization. Conclusion: Frailty is very useful concept, because it has the potential to identify the elderly population at risk of adverse health outcomes. Based on this results, the appropriate tool for screening Korean Frail elderly and Nursing intervention for them needs to be developed.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.380-387
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• 2016

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating and moderating effects of fall-related efficacy and social support on the relationship between frailty and health-related quality of life among rural community-dwelling elderly. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a convenient sampling method, and data of 438 elderly residents living in a rural community was used. The structured questionnaire included items from the Euro Quality of life-5 Dimensions (mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, anxiety/ depression), fall-related efficacy and social support. Results: Analysis of the mediating effect of fall-related efficacy and social support showed that there was significant mediating influence of fall-related efficacy on the relationship between frailty and health-related quality of life. There were no moderating effects of fall-related efficacy and social support. Conclusion: The findings suggest that fall-related efficacy may play a role in reducing the effect of frailty on health-related quality of life and underscore the need to consider ways of enhancing fall-related efficacy in interventions for rural community-dwelling frail elderly.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.963-979
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to identify frailty profiles based on physical, psychological, and social domains of functioning and to examine the associated factors showing the differences among frailty profiles. Respondents were 70 years and older(n=403) and latent class analysis was applied to determine the optimal subgroups based on Tilberg Frailty Indicators which comprised of three domains(the physical, psychological, and social domain). Also, we performed multinominal logistic regression analysis to find out factors making differences among frailty profiles. Latent class analysis(LCA) identified three distinct types: multi-frail type(27.0%), psychologically frail type(26.8%), inadequate support type(46.2%). All three types had common difficulties in dealing with daily life problems and did not receive enough help with theses difficulties. Based on the results of the LCA three-class models, people in multi-frail type accumulated problems in physical and psychological domains and had partially social domain. On the other hands, psychologically frail type showed a relatively high anxiety disorder and depression. Lastly, people in inadequate support type reported the lack of helps, but they were relatively healthy. Comparing these groups with inadequate support type, people with multi-frail had lower educational level, poor nutritional management status and were less likely to participate in labor market. People in psychologically frail type were more likely to be male, to live in big cities rather than middle and small cities, and less likely to smoke. Based on these results, our results showed the multifaceted concept of frailty among Korean elderly people and we suggested several implications for preventing frail process.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.837-851
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• 2018

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between frailty and health care utilization in a cross-sectional design of a population-based sample of community-dwelling older adults. We used the data of 516 participants who dwell in Daejon, aged between 65 and 84 years old. Using K-frailty index, frailty status were measured and categorized as three groups: robust, prefrail, and frail. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine if frailty affects emergency department(ED) visit or hospitalization. In addition, negative binomial regression was used to examine the association between outpatient visits and frailty. Our results showed that the frail elderly increased the ED visit and the number of outpatient visit significantly after controlling for demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, the number of chronic diseases, and self-rated health status. Considering that frailty is an important independent factor affecting health care utilization, more attention is required to prevent the frailty in our health care system.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.562-574
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• 2017

Purpose: This study attempts to explore the subjective experience of frailty among elderly individuals in Korea. Methods: From June to August in 2014, 11 elderly persons who had experienced frailty in a community were interviewed. For data analysis, the method suggested by Colaizzi was applied as a phenomenological method. Results: According to the analysis, the study participants' frailty process was structured in seven categories: (a) 'natural phenomenon with ageing,' (b) 'life force comes to an end,' (c) 'the light in my heart turns off,' (d) 'unavoidable situation,' (e) 'continuous and connected vicious cycle,' (f) 'the limit of recovery energy already passes,' and (g) 'life is supported by someone's help.' Conclusion: The frailty experience in the participants is a natural process of aging, which cause vicious cycle acting with each other among physical, psychological, and social health. It is said that the cycle of frailty was started from weight loss and insufficient sleep, and boostered by pain. The participants from repetition of the vicious cycle become exhausted and pass the threshold of their recovery energy at some points. If they meet with sudden accidents such as falling, traffic accident and so on, they become to live a dependent life supported by someone's help in a moment. To prevent frailty and worsening conditions in Korean elderly individuals, it is recommended to provide a interventional programs using this study's results.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1007-1018
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• 2023

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to examine whether the tailored home-delivered meal (HDM) services included nutrition counseling impacts alleviating self-rated frailty among low-income older adults in Korea. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Pre- and post-test were implemented on May 27 and on November 25 in 2019 during 3 weeks, respectively, before and after the 6 months intervention program. Participants completed a questionnaire measuring frailty, malnutrition, food security, depression, and underlying diseases. Initially, 136 older adults were selected as participants for this study, they were recipients of a free meal program from 2 senior welfare centers in Seoul, the final sample size of those who completed the intervention program was 117 (female 70.9%, male 29.1%). Statistical analyses were conducted with IBM SPSS package program, paired t-test and χ² test to validate the test. RESULTS: There were statistically significant differences in the score of the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI) before and after receiving the tailored HDM services (pre-test 9.46, post-test 2.8, P < 0.01). The differences in the score of TFI by 3 risk groups at the pre-test decreased as a result of receiving these services. CONCLUSIONS: The tailored HDM services alleviated the self-rated frailty of low-income older adults with limited mobility in a community setting. Based on the positive outcomes this study could be applied to developing social services for aging in place.