To understand the relationship between age, frailty and overactive bladder (OAB).
This is a prospective study of individuals age ≥65 presenting to an academic urology practice between December 2015 and July 2016.
All patients had a Timed Up and Go Test (TUGT), a parsimonious measure of frailty, on intake and were thereby categorized as fast (≤10 sec), intermediate (11-14 sec) and slow (≥15 sec). The TUGT and other clinical data were abstracted from the electronic medical record (EMR) using direct queries. Logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between frailty and the diagnosis of OAB, adjusting for age, gender and race.
Our cohort included 201 and 1162 individuals with and without OAB, respectively. Individuals with OAB had slower TUGTs (13.7 ± 7.9 sec) than their non-OAB counterparts (10.9 ± 5.2 sec), p<0.0001, with 32.3% and 11.0% of OAB and non-OAB individuals being categorized as slow, or frail. In multivariable analysis, slower TUGT was a significant predictor of OAB (adjusted OR 3.0; 95% CI 2.0-4.8). Age was not independently associated with this diagnosis (p values >0.05 for each age group).
Patients with OAB are statistically significantly frailer than individuals seeking care for other non-oncologic urologic diagnoses. Frailty, when adjusted for age, race and gender, is a statistically significant predictor of OAB. Furthermore, frailty should be considered when caring for older patients with OAB and OAB should be assessed when caring for frail older patients.
Urology. 2017 May 11 [Epub ahead of print]
Anne M Suskind, Kathryn Quanstrom, Shoujun Zhao, Mark Bridge, Louise C Walter, John Neuhaus, Emily Finlayson
University of California, San Francisco Department of Urology. Electronic address: ., University of California, San Francisco Department of Urology., University of California, San Francisco, Division of Geriatrics; Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, California, Division of Geriatrics., University of California, San Francisco, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics., University of California, San Francisco, Department of Surgery.