The Asian working group for sarcopenia’s new criteria updated in 2019 causinga change in sarcopenia prevalence in Japanese older adults requiring long-termcare/support

摘要

[Purpose] The Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) criteria were recently updated.However, whether these changes would result in a difference in sarcopenia prevalence wasunclear. We therefore focused on Japanese older adults who required long-term care/supportand determined the differences in sarcopenia prevalence between the new and old criteria.[Participants and Methods] This cross-sectional study included 161 Japanese older adultsaged ≥65 years who required long-term care/support along with ongoing daycare. Handgripstrength, usual gait speed, and skeletal muscle mass index were measured. We analyzed thedifference in sarcopenia prevalence between the 2019 and 2014 AWGS criteria using theMcNemar test. [Results] The overall sarcopenia prevalence rates were 60.2% and 53.4%, andthe prevalence rates of sex-specific sarcopenia were 63.6% and 55.7% among males and 56.2%and 50.7% among females when the 2019 and 2014 AWGS criteria were used, respectively.Overall, males exhibited a significantly higher prevalence with the new than criteria thanwith the old. [Conclusion] With the 2019 AWGS criteria, more older males who requiredlong-term care/support were diagnosed as having sarcopenia. Conversely, the sarcopeniadiagnosis in females statistically remained unchanged. Thus, a mismatch might existbetween the two criteria regarding sarcopenia prevalence in males.