Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): INTRODUCTION: Older adults face a high burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD), exacerbated by geriatric conditions such as multimorbidity and polypharmacy. The collective influence on CVD risk remains unclear. We hypothesize that the coexistence of multiple geriatric syndromes increases the risk of incident CVD events.
METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study among individuals aged 45–64 years using a logistic regression to assess the association between geriatric syndrome(had ≥3factors) and CVD events at the end of Visit 5(period prevalence) in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities(ARIC study). We examined the following geriatric conditions: multimorbidity (≥2 chronic conditions), polypharmacy (≥5 medications), cognitive impairment vision impairment, hearing impairment, urinary incontinence, functional decline, frailty, and sarcopenia. Primary outcome was prevalence of 3-point MACE, defined as: death, acute myocardial infarction (AMI), or stroke.
RESULTS: Among the 5,141 participants, 13% had no geriatric conditions, 18% had one, 17% had two, and 52% had ≥3. Participants with ≥3 geriatric conditions were generally older, female, White, and overweight with hospitalization rates of 3. Overall,18% of the cohort experienced MACE events and 82% didn’t, with death being the most common at 9%. Those with ≥3 geriatric conditions had the highest prevalence of stroke (5%), AMI (11%), and death (13%) as compared to 2,1 and 0 geriatric conditions which were 2%,6%,7% and 1%,3%,6% and 1%,2%,3% respectively. In the adjusted model, having ≥3 geriatric conditions was associated with significantly higher odds of AMI (OR = 6.47; 95% CI: 3.57-13.18), stroke (OR=6.33; 95% CI: 2.83-18.08), death (OR = 3.51; 95% CI: 2.20-5.95), and MACE (OR=4.92; 95% CI: 3.44-7.28) compared with having no condition
CONCLUSION: We found a strong association between the number of prevalent geriatric conditions and increased cardiovascular risk in the older adults. This highlights the need for integrated care models to identify geriatric conditions in older adults with cardiovascular disease in order to tailor prevention and treatment.