UC San Diego

Background

Frailty is associated with poor outcomes among older adults with hypertension and complicates its pharmacological management. Here, we assessed whether 12-weeks of instructor-guided, group Tai Chi (TC) practice improved frailty relative to Healthy Aging Practice-centered Education (HAP-E) classes in older adults with hypertension.

Methods

Secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial in San Diego County, USA, of 167 community-dwelling individuals aged ≥ 60 yrs (70% female; 72.1 ± 7.5 yrs), defined as non-frail (66%) or frail (34%) based on 53-item deficit accumulation frailty index (FI). Linear mixed-effects models were used to assess pre-to-post intervention differences in FI and logistic regression to explore differential odds of clinically meaningful FI change.

Results

One hundred thirty-one participants completed post-intervention assessments. Frailty decreased pre-to-post intervention in the TC (ΔFI = - 0.016, d = - 0.39, - 0.75 to - 0.03), but not the HAP-E arm (ΔFI = - 0.009, d = - 0.13, - 0.52-0.27), despite no significant group differences between the TC and HAP-E arms (d = - 0.11, - 0.46-0.23). Furthermore, greater odds of improved FI were observed for frail participants in the TC (OR = 3.84, 1.14-14.9), but not the HAP-E (OR = 1.34, 0.39-4.56) arm. Subgroup analysis indicated treatment effects in TC were attributed to frail participants (frail: ΔFI = - 0.035, d = - 0.68, -1.26 to - 0.08; non-frail: ΔFI = - 0.005, d = - 0.19, - 0.59-0.22), which was not the case in the HAP-E arm (frail: ΔFI = - 0.017, d = - 0.23, - 0.81-0.35; non-frail: ΔFI = - 0.003, d = - 0.07, - 0.47-0.33). Frail participants were no more likely to drop-out of the study than non-frail (71% vs. 69% retained).

Conclusions

Twelve weeks of twice-weekly guided TC practice was well-tolerated, associated with decreases in frailty, and increased odds of clinically meaningful FI improvement at post-intervention.