"Women Are More Vulnerable Than Men to New Disability Onset Due to Frailty"

Research Team of Professor Won Jangwon, Kyung Hee University Hospital

From the left, Professor Won Jangwon, Head of the Department of Family Medicine at Kyung Hee University Hospital; Professor Kim Miji of the Department of Convergence Medical Science at Kyung Hee University; and Researcher Lee Seoyoon.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] A study has found that the possibility of new disabilities occurring due to frailty is greater in women than in men.

The research team led by Professor Won Jang-won of the Department of Family Medicine at Kyung Hee University Hospital (including Professor Kim Mi-ji and Researcher Lee Seo-yoon from Kyung Hee University's Department of Convergence Medical Science) announced on the 17th that they analyzed the impact of frailty stages on the occurrence of new disabilities and the differences by gender based on data collected through the National Frailty Cohort Project for the elderly.

The research team classified 2,905 elderly participants aged 70 to 84 from the Korean Elderly Frailty Cohort into frail, pre-frail, and healthy groups, then conducted a two-year follow-up to examine the likelihood of developing disabilities in basic activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), and mobility disabilities.

As a result, after controlling for related variables, physical frailty was found to independently affect the occurrence of new disabilities regardless of gender, with the likelihood being particularly higher in women than in men.

According to the research team, frail individuals had a 14-fold higher chance for women and a 9.9-fold higher chance for men of experiencing mobility disabilities after two years compared to healthy elderly. The likelihood of developing disabilities in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) was about 7.2 times higher for women and 3.2 times higher for men. Among the types of IADL disabilities with high occurrence rates in both frail men and women, using transportation (such as taking buses or subways) was identified as the most common.

Corresponding author Professor Won Jang-won stated, "This study confirms that frailty is a very important risk factor for causing disabilities and suggests that when establishing related policies and prevention programs, the need for recovery interventions for women should be emphasized more than for men."

Meanwhile, this study was published in the July issue of the online scientific journal BMC GERIATRICS.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.