Different assessment tools to detect sarcopenia in patients with Parkinson's disease

Abstract

IntroductionSarcopenia and Parkinson's disease are closely related diseases of the elderly population leading to progressive disability and nursing-dependent care.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of sarcopenia in PD patients with three different approaches: (1) the screening tool SARC-F, (2) EWGSOP-1 criteria, and (3) EWGSOP-2 criteria. Moreover, we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the screening tool SARC-F to detect sarcopenia according to the updated EWGSOP-2 criteria.MethodsEighty-one patients with Parkinson's disease aged 65 years and above were interviewed in a cross-sectional study at a tertiary referral center. All patients were screened with the SARC-F questionnaire and were evaluated for motor and non-motor symptoms, exercise, quality of life, and frailty. Muscle mass was assessed with bioelectrical impedance analysis, handgrip strength with a dynamometer, and gait speed was assessed with the 8-m walk test. EWGSOP-2 criteria were considered the gold standard to diagnose sarcopenia in our study.ResultsEighty-one patients were evaluated (mean age: 73.82; SD 5.30). The prevalence of sarcopenia was 28.4% according to the EWGSOP-2 criteria. The concordance between EWGSOP-2 and EWGSOP-1 was poor (weighted kappa of 0.361[95% 0.164–0.557]). The sensitivity of the SARC-F screening test for detecting sarcopenia was 60.9%. The corresponding AUC in the ROC curve analysis showed 0.598 (0.462, 0.734 CI). The item assessing strength was found to have the highest sensitivity (69.6%).ConclusionSarcopenia prevalence in patients with PD in Tirol, Austria is higher with EWGSOP-1 criteria compared to EWGSOP-2 criteria. The sensitivity and specificity of the SARC-F scale to detect sarcopenia in this population are poor.

Evaluating sarcopenia prevalence and SARC-F effectiveness in elderly Spanish women with RA: a comparative study of EWGSOP criteria

“…The data observed in this study has revealed a starker contrast between the two diagnostic tools than what has been reported in prior studies (7,8,21). Specifically, the prevalence of sarcopenia identified using EWGSOP-2 criteria was nearly one-third of that detected with EWGSOP-1 criteria.…”

“…Almeida et al (7) analyzed both sets of criteria in 57 patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (mean age: 52.7 ± 11.3 years; 75.4% females), finding sarcopenia in 3.5% of cases using only the EWGSOP-1 criteria. Valent et al (8), studying 81 Parkinson's disease patients (mean age: 73.8 ± 5.3 years; 45% females), reported sarcopenia prevalences of 51.9% with EWGSOP-1 and 28.4% with EWGSOP-2. Lastly, de Freitas et al (21) examined 242 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (mean age: 68.3 ± 5.6 years; 54% females), observing sarcopenia prevalences of 16.9% with EWGSOP-1 and 7% with EWGSOP-2.…”

“…The diagnostic concordance between these two methodologies is recognized as minimal, which has led to disparities in the reported prevalence of sarcopenia, affecting both the general population (6) and individuals with specific conditions (7,8).…”

Temporal Muscle Thickness Correlates with Sarcopenia in Parkinson’s Disease

“…The prevalence of sarcopenia is typically lower when using EWGSOP2 criteria (difference of about 7% in a recent review [ 3 ]). Due to the adapted operationalization of sarcopenia-diagnosis and stricter recommended cut-off values for handgrip strength and muscle mass, the EWGSOP2 criteria are believed to be more accurate [ 12 ]. TMT in this study only significantly correlated with assessment of sarcopenia according to EWGSOP2 but not EWGSOP1.…”

“…We choose to apply both the EWGSOP1 and 2 criteria for sarcopenia-assessment in this study as only few groups have used the new EWGSOP2 criteria in PD patient cohorts so far. The concordance of prevalence-ratings between the two criteria was recently rated as poor in a local PD population [ 12 ]. However, EWGSOP1 criteria were more closely associated with negative health outcomes in a recentreview [ 3 ].…”