Progression and trajectory network of age-related functional impairments and their combined associations with mortality

• Published in: iScience 2023-12, Vol.26 (12), p.108368-108368, Article 108368
• Main Authors: Chen, Hui, Wang, Binghan, Lv, Rongxia, Zhou, Tianjing, Shen, Jie, Song, Huan, Xu, Xiaolin, Ma, Yuan, Yuan, Changzheng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: age; association analysis; bioinformatics; health sciences
• ISSN: 2589-0042; 2589-0042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108368

Age-related functional impairments (ARFIs) contribute to the loss of independence in older adults, but their progressions, interrelations, and combined relations with mortality are largely unknown. We conducted a prospective study among 17,914 participants in the Health and Retirement Study (2000–2020). The incidence rates of visual impairment, hearing impairment, physical frailty, and cognitive impairment increased exponentially with age, while those of restless sleep and depression increased relatively slowly. These ARFIs were associated with each other in temporal sequence and constituted a hazard network. We observed a dose-response relationship between the number of ARFIs and mortality risk, and the dyads involving physical frailty demonstrated the strongest associations with mortality. Our findings may assist in the identification of individuals at higher mortality risk and highlight the potential for future investigations to explore the impact of multiple ARFIs in aging. [Display omitted] •Incidence rates of certain functional impairments increase exponentially with age•Distinct patterns of functional impairments were observed across age groups•Six functional impairments are bidirectionally related to each other during follow-up•Number of functional impairments predicts mortality risk in a dose-response manner Health sciences; Age; Bioinformatics; Association analysis