Factors associated with functional loss among community-dwelling Mexican

Introduction: Functional status decline is related to many negative outcomes. Objective: To explore the relation between sociodemographic, medical and psychological factors with the incidence of functional status decline in Mexican older adults. Materials and methods: Data from the 2012 and 2015 waves of the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) survey was analyzed. Participants with previous functional status decline at baseline were excluded. We assessed functional status decline individually with activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental ADLs (IADLs) in an individual way. Results: Age was associated with functional limitation in ADLs. Male sex had an association with limitations for IADLs. A poor financial situation and lower education related to higher limitations for ADLs. Furthermore, pain, comorbidities and depression were found to be independently associated with limitations in ADLs. IADLs limitation was associated with age, poor education, comorbidities, depression as well as cognitive impairment. Conclusions We found that factors such as age, financial status, educational level, pain and the number of comorbidities were associated with the incidence of functional status decline. Pain had a greater association in the 3-year functional ADLs decline incidence when compared with cognitive impairment. Studying functional decline by domains allowed us to find more detailed information in order to identify factors that are susceptible to intervention with the aim to reduce the incidence of functional status decline and dependence.