Associations between sedentary behaviour, physical activity and frailty in older Chinese women: A cross-sectional study

Aims and objectives To investigate the association between sedentary behaviour (SB), physical activity (PA), and frailty and frailty subdomains in community-dwelling older women. Background Frailty is associated with numerous adverse health outcomes in older people, and women had a higher prevalence than men. However, older adults may face different health risks due to different combinations of frailty subdomains; therefore, specific studies on frailty subdomains are needed. Design A cross-sectional study guided by the STROBE. Methods In total, 1099 community-dwelling older Chinese women (60-70 years) were included. SB and PA were objectively obtained using a validated triaxial accelerometer. Frailty was defined using the Fried Phenotype (FP) Model. Results After adjusting for confounders, a significant association was found between SB, PA and the prevalence of frailty. The optimal cut-off values of total SB time, light PA (LPA) time, and moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) time to discriminate between frailty and non-frailty were 625.4 min/day, 379.3 min/day and 20.1 min/day, respectively. For frailty subdomains, total SB time was positively associated with low PA. When it comes to total LPA time, the association with low PA was negative. Total MVPA time was significantly and negatively associated with exhaustion, weakness, slowness and low PA, and the optimal cutoff value was 24.4 min/day, 26 min/day, 29.5 min/day and 20.8 min/day, respectively. Conclusions Effective management of frailty requires consideration of different combinations of frailty subdomains. Increasing MVPA and limiting SB may help deal with frailty for community-dwelling older Chinese women. Additional research is needed to determine whether PA are useful for prevention of frailty. Relevance to clinical practice The results of this study could help caregivers provide professional and specific physical activity guidance for order women, who are on a risk of or already suffered frailty.

Automated summary

This study investigated the association between sedentary behavior, physical activity, and frailty and frailty subdomains in community-dwelling older women. The results showed that increasing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and reducing sedentary behavior can help address frailty in this population.