Disentangling Cognitive-Frailty: Results From the Gait and Brain Study

A relatively new concept, “Cognitive-Frailty” describes the overlapping presence of two syndromes that can occur with aging: cognitive impairment and physical frailty, which is characterized by weakness, decreased energy, and reduced activity. It has been suggested that having cognitive-frailty makes one more likely to develop dementia than frailty alone. Dr. Montero-Odasso and colleagues tested this hypothesis, and also examined whether a combination of cognitive impairment (defined as a total score below 26/30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)) and a slow walking speed (defined as walking slower than 1 meter per second) was a predictor of developing dementia. What they found was that people with frailty were more likely to have cognitive impairment than people without frailty, but cognitive-frailty did not lead to dementia more often than frailty alone. Those with cognitive impairment and slow walking speed, however, were the most likely to develop dementia. This suggests that a simple motor test, such as one’s walking speed, and a reliable cognitive test, such as the MoCA, are superior to the cognitive-frailty construct for detecting individuals at risk for dementia.