Association between sarcopenia grade and fall history among older adults in West China: A retrospective study

Objectives: The association between sarcopenia severity and fall history remains under-researched at present. Accordingly, this study was developed to evaluate the relationship between sarcopenic status and prior fall events in a multiethnic group of older community-dwelling adults in Western China.

Design: A retrospective survey study, the data comes from the West China Health and Aging Trend study.

Setting: The study was based in Western China.

Participants: In total, this retrospective analysis incorporated data from 2719 older adults (59.2% women).

Primary and secondary outcome measures: Grip strength, gait speed and skeletal muscle mass index values were analysed for all participants, and the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) 2014 and 2019 consensus criteria were leveraged to assess sarcopenia status in these individuals. Prior fall history was defined by any incidents in which an individual unintentionally came to rest on the floor within the past year. The association between sarcopenia status and fall history was examined through a binary logistic regression approach, with p<0.05 as the threshold for significance.

Results: Using the AWGS2014 and AWGS2019 diagnostic criteria, of the individuals included in this study cohort 1851 (68.1%) were free of sarcopenia, 160 (5.9%) and 56 (2.1%) showed only muscle-mass loss, 322 (11.8%) and 267 (9.8%) exhibited non-severe sarcopenia and the remaining 386 (14.2%) and 545 (20.0%) exhibited severe sarcopenia, respectively. Previous fall events were reported for 14.8% of study cohort members. After full adjustment for potential confounders, a significant link between severe sarcopenia diagnosed by the AWGS2014 diagnostic criteria and fall history was observed (OR 1.397, 95% CI 1.029 to 1.896, p=0.032), while the AWGS2019 diagnostic criteria did not (OR 1.29, 95% CI 0.982 to 1.694, p=0.068).

Conclusions: Severe sarcopenia, as defined per the AWGS2014 criteria, was associated with a significantly higher risk of falls in this multiethnic cohort of older adults from Western China, while the AWGS2019 diagnostic criteria did not. However, this relationship was not observed for individuals who experienced muscle mass loss or had non-severe sarcopenia, according to both the AWGS2014 and AWGS2019 diagnostic criteria.