• Weihao Xu, Ya-Xi Li, Yixin Hu, and Chenkai Wu.
• Geriatric Cardiology Department of the Second Medical Center & National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Diseases, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China.
• BMC Geriatr. 2020 Mar 30; 20 (1): 119.

BackgroundsLittle is known about the role of frailty in the recovery process of disability among older adults. We examined the association between frailty and recovery from activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental ADL (IADL) disability among community-dwelling Chinese older adults.MethodsData were from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Three waves were used. Participants ≥60 years, had frailty assessment at baseline, and had incident disability in ADL or IADL in 2013, and had disability assessment in 2015 were included. Recovery from ADL and IADL disability were used as outcome measure. Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate the potential association between frailty and recovery from ADL or IADL.ResultsWe included 516 and 598 participants in the ADL and IADL analysis, respectively. In total, 237 participants recovered from ADL disability and 293 recovered from IADL disability. Nearly half of the non-frail persons recovered from ADL disability, while less than one-quarter of the frail persons had recovery. Over half of the non-frail persons had IADL disability recovery, while only 30% of the frail recovered. After adjustment, the odds of recovery from ADL disability were 59% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1, 83%) lower among frail participants than those who were non-frail; the odds of recovery from IADL disability were 52% lower among frail persons than those who were non-frail and the association did not reach statistical significance.ConclusionsFrailty is an independent predictor of poor recovery from disability among nondisabled community-dwelling older adults in China.

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