Speaker: Dr. Sandra Magalhaes, Research Associate, New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT), University of New Brunswick

Description: Frailty is a negative outcome associated with aging. For older couples, the presence of frailty in one partner increases the risk of frailty in the other, which has important implications for supporting community-dwelling older couples (CDOC) to reduce negative outcomes associated with frailty. From over 37,000 CDOC we found that in 10% both members were hospitalized; 80% were low/no frailty risk and 2% as high/intermediate risk. Males were, on average, older than females in each frailty category. Due to the high proportion of CDOC with no/low risk, we observed a small but positive association between continuous frailty risk scores. Whereas, for frailty risk categories we found a 23% increased prevalence of high/intermediate frailty when their partner had a high/intermediate frailty. While frailty risk was not prevalent in our large population-based sample, when CDOC are identified as having an intermediate or high risk of frailty, their partners are also more likely to have high or intermediate frailty.

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HNJg3cmhSwG1CXN-biRPfA