Professor Liu Minhui’s team has published a paper in Age and Ageing (CAS Category 1, Impact Factor: 6.0). The study is titled "Association of multimorbidity patterns and order of physical frailty and cognitive impairment occurrence: a prospective cohort study."

This prospective study analyzed 7,522 U.S. community-dwelling older adults (65+) with no initial frailty or cognitive impairment over four years. Using latent class analysis of 5,545 participants with multimorbidity, four distinct patterns were identified: cardiometabolic, osteoarticular, cancer-dominant, and mental/multisystem. Competing risk model analysis revealed that all four patterns significantly increased the risk of physical frailty occurring first, while no significant association was found with prior cognitive impairment. The findings highlight temporal onset differences from a multimorbidity perspective, informing personalized prevention strategies. The study also notes that multimorbidity patterns are dynamic, warranting future research into their evolution and impact.

Author & Support Information:

Professor Liu Minhui (Ningxia Medical University) and Professor Sun Hongyu from Peking University serve as co-corresponding authors. The first author is Wang Shuomin, a master’s student at the Xiangya School of Nursing of Central South University, and the primary affiliated institution is Ningxia Medical University.

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Humanities and Social Sciences Planning Project of the Ministry of Education, the Key Research and Development Program of Hunan Province, and the Soft Science Research Program of Changsha City. Johns Hopkins University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Peking University, and Central South University participated as co-authoring institutions.