Association between social frailty as well as early physical dysfunction and exercise intolerance among older patients receiving hemodialysis

Background Recently, social frailty has been increasingly recognized as a factor associated with adverse health outcomes, including physical disability and mortality. However, there are no studies about the importance of this factor among hemodialysis patients. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between social frailty and early physical dysfunction in this group of patients. Methods This was a two‐center cross‐sectional study. Older patients receiving hemodialysis were prospectively enrolled. Moreover, participants were evaluated for social frailty based on the definition of previous study and for physical function, peak oxygen uptake (peak VO2), ventilatory equivalent for carbon dioxide (VE/VCO2) slope and heart rate reserve. Then, they were divided into two groups based on the presence of physical frailty. Results Data collected from 158 individuals were statistically analyzed. The prevalence rate of social frailty was 59.5%. In the non‐physical frailty group, social frailty was found to be independently associated with reduced gait speed (P = 0.007), leg strength (P = 0.040) and peak VO2 (P = 0.023), but not with hand grip strength (P = 0.36). In the physical frailty group, there was no association between social frailty and physical function. Moreover, in patients without physical and social frailty, physical function was maintained at above accepted threshold levels, whereas peak VO2 (14.1 ± 3.3 mL/kg/min), VE/VCO2 slope (32.3 ± 5.5) and heart rate reserve (50.8% ± 21.7%) were substantially impaired. Conclusions Patients receiving hemodialysis can present with social frailty and exercise intolerance with cardiac dysfunction in the early phase, which may contribute to subsequent dysfunction. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2021; 21: 664–669.