Mortality Risk and Its Association with Geriatric Domain Deficits in Older Outpatients: The Amsterdam Ageing Cohort

In older patients, life expectancy is determined by a complex interaction of multiple geriatric domains. A comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) captures different geriatric domains. Yet, if and how components of the CGA are related to mortality in an outpatient geriatric setting is unknown. In the Amsterdam Ageing Cohort, we therefore studied distribution and accumulation of geriatric domain deficits in relation to mortality.

All patients received a CGA as part of standard care, independent of referral reason. We summarized deficits on the CGA, using predefined cutoffs, in 5 geriatric domains: somatic, mental, nutritional, physical, and social domain. Information on mortality was obtained from the Dutch municipal register. We used age- and sex-adjusted Cox proportional hazards analyses to relate the separate domains and accumulation of impaired domains to overall mortality.

From the 1,055 geriatric outpatients (53% female; age 79 ± 7 years), 172 patients (16%) had died after 1.7 ± 1.1 years. In 626 patients (59%), 3 or more domains were impaired. All domains were independently associated with mortality, with the highest hazard for the somatic domain (HR 3.7 [1.7-8.0]) and the lowest hazard for the mental domain (HR 1.5 [1.1-12.0]). In addition, accumulation of impaired domains showed a gradually increased mortality risk, ranging from HR 2.2 (0.8-6.1) for 2 domains to HR 9.6 (3.7-24.7) for all 5 domains impaired.

This study provides evidence that impairment in multiple geriatric domains is highly prevalent and independently and cumulatively associated with mortality in an outpatient geriatric setting.