Sarcopenia and Associated Factors in the Elderly of a Family Medicine Unit in Yucatan, Mexico

Abstract

Objective: to determine the prevalence and factors associated with sarcopenia in the elderly attending a family medicine unit (fmu). Methods: analytical cross-sectional study; 121 adults aged 60 years and over attached to the fmu No.20 of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (imss) in Caucel, Yucatan, Mexico participated; they were evaluated from June to October 2019. Using a non-randomized sampling of consecutive cases, the sociodemographic data and body mass index (bmi) were collected. The diagnosis of sarcopenia was established according to criteria of the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (ewgsop 2010). The Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity (rapa) questionnaire was used to assess the level of physical activity and the Katz index to estimate dependence in activities of daily living. In the statistical analysis, the Mann-Whitney U and the χ² test of independence were used to compare the groups, and multiple logistic regression was used to determine risk factors for sarcopenia; a p-value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: the prevalence of sarcopenia was 46%. The factors associated with sarcopenia were: age >75 years (or of 6.3; 95% ci: 1.8-21.4), chronic alcohol consumption (or of 4.3; 95% ci: 1.45-13.2), bmi <27 (or of 8; 95% ci: 1.8-33.9) and bmi of 27 to 30 (or of 4.1; 95% ci: 1.64-10.5). Conclusions: sarcopenia was present in almost half of the participants; the risk of sarcopenia increases after 75 years of age, with chronic alcohol consumption and bmi <30.