142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

306814
Inflammation and functional decline in aging subjects from NHANES 2001 – 2010

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Aaron Pannone, PhD , Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Laurie Archbald-Pannone, MD, MPH , Department of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Background: Higher systemic inflammation is associated with worse health outcomes for multiple co-morbidities. Inflammation has also been associated with functional and cognitive decline. We evaluated systemic inflammation in the geriatric population, as represented in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001 through 2010, as a prediction tool for functional decline.  

Methods: C-reactive protein (mg/dL) was analyzed using quartiles developed from our dataset.  Functional decline utilized five following constructs: Activities of daily living (ADL): Eating, walking, dressing getting out of bed; Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL): Managing money, housekeeping, food preparation; Leisure and social activities (LSA): Attending social events, going out to movies, in-home leisure activities;  Lower extremity mobility (LEM): Walking for a quarter mile, walking up ten steps; General physical activities (GPA): Stooping, bending, standing, sitting, lifting, reaching, grasping. Logistic regression was performed for each type of decline utilizing CRP quartiles and adjusting for age and worse health than previous year.  Odd ratios are reported.

Results: The highest quartile (4th quartile) of CRP was significant to < 0.0001: ADL: 1.82 (1.29 - 2.57); IADL: 2.06 (1.55 - 2.73); LSA: 2.65 (2.04 - 3.45); LEM: 3.33 (2.45 - 4.52); GPA: 2.66 (2.08 - 3.40).  The second and third quartiles of CRP were also significant for LEM and GPA.

Conclusion: Elderly subjects with higher level of systemic inflammation, as measured by CRP, had decreased function on evaluated scales. With further study, CRP may be a useful clinical tool to aid clinicians in predicting functional decline in elderly patients.

Learning Areas:

Clinical medicine applied in public health

Learning Objectives:
Identify the relationship between inflammation and functional decline

Keyword(s): Aging, Medical Care

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have three years experience analyzing population data for a state department of health. I teach secondary data analysis to graduate-level students.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.