Abstract
Background and Objectives
HIV patients have seen accelerated ageing. Our objective was to determine the prevalence of frailty, to evaluate factors associated with frailty and to evaluate physical function in older HIV-infected adults.
Design
this was a cross-sectional study.
Setting
outpatient clinics of two public university hospitals in Madrid (Spain).
Methods
frailty was defined according to the criteria of Fried: shrinking, weakness, poor endurance and energy, slowness and low physical activity level, being frail those who met at least three criteria, prefrail one or two criteria and robust when they met no criteria. Physical function was assessed using standardised methods.
Results
we evaluated 117 HIV-infected patients. Mean age was 61.3 ([standard deviation] 6.87) years. All patients were on antiretroviral therapy. Median current CD4+ T-cell count was 638 (144-1871) cells/μl, and median CD4/CD8 ratio was 0.79 (0.00-3.62). The prevalence of frailty was 15.4%, and that of prefrailty was 52.1%. In the multivariate analyses depressive symptoms (OR [95% CI], 9.20 [2.17-39.05]) and CD4/CD8 ratio (OR 0.11 [0.02-0.61]) were associated with frailty. Even though 100% of the patients were able to walk and perform basic activities of daily life independently, functional impairment was high (20% slow gait and 55% Short Physical Performance Battery ≤9).
Conclusions
HIV-infected patients aged ≥55 years have a high prevalence of frailty and a high burden of functional impairment. Optimal management of this population requires close collaboration between infectious diseases specialists and geriatricians.
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