Explore the Prevalence of Sarcopenia among Elderly and the Effect of Health Promotion Program

Background: Rapid aging of Taiwan population had imposed negative impacts on both the physical and psychological aspect of the elderly residents in Taiwan. Sarcopenia is one of the important issues of the elderly and may cause degeneration, falling down, disability, admission, or even death in related population. In Taiwan, the study regarding elderly sarcopenia are still in its infancy, more evidence are needed on the prevalence and even the measuring tools on elderly sarcopenia. Method: This is a 3 year study. The first year will be spent on examination of measuring tools and screening of sarcopenia. It will be conducted in hospital outpatient clinic using the new tool, Q check intelligence multiple functional physical examination system. We will validate the new tool using the gold standard, Dual X ray absorptionmetry, DXA. After validation of the tool, we will start to screen the disease using the tool and try to understand the disease characteristics, prevalence, and related disabilities. During the second year, we will try to investigate the effort regarding prevention of sarcopenia. Focusing on monitored exercise and nutritional intervention will be our key elements to prevent the disease. 120 subjects will be enrolled for pre intervention measurement followed by interventions. There will be 3 intervention groups, exercise only, nutritional intervention only, both exercise and nutrition intervention, to be compared with the controlled group (no intervention at all). The interventions will be finished within 8 weeks. And we will followed up the population after the intervention, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months ,1 year and 1.5 year later after the intervention .In the 3rd year of the study, we will continue our follow-ups for the results of our interventions. Furthermore, we will do subgroup analysis to elucidate the effect of different intervention methods on different population. Hopefully we can confirm the effective intervention to increase the muscle mass, walking speed, muscle power of our subjects and in addition to show the impact of sarcopenia intervention on risk of getting sick, falling down or even death. Expected results To validate the new tool for detecting elderly sarcopenia and to find out effective health promotion intervention on the disease and in turns decrease the related complication and medical cost.