Diagnostic Utility of Specific Frailty Questionnaire: The Kihon Checklist for Hippocampal Atrophy in COPD

TL;DR

This study shows that the Kihon Checklist, a frailty questionnaire, can help detect hippocampal atrophy in COPD patients, offering a non-invasive diagnostic tool.

Contribution

The study introduces the Kihon Checklist as a non-invasive tool for detecting hippocampal atrophy in COPD patients.

Findings

COPD patients had significantly lower left hippocampal volumes compared to healthy individuals.

The KCL subdomain related to daily living activities showed the strongest correlation with hippocampal volume.

KCL scores demonstrated high sensitivity and specificity for identifying hippocampal atrophy in COPD patients.

Abstract

Background/Objectives: COPD patients who are frail have been reported to develop brain atrophy, but no non-invasive diagnostic tool has been developed to detect this condition. Our study aimed to explore the diagnostic utility of the Kihon Checklist (KCL), a frailty questionnaire, in assessing hippocampal volume loss in patients with COPD. Methods: We recruited 40 COPD patients and 20 healthy individuals using the KCL to assess frailty across seven structural domains. Hippocampal volumes were obtained from T1-weighted MRI images, and ROC analysis was performed to detect hippocampal atrophy. Results: Our results showed that patients with COPD had significantly greater atrophic left hippocampal volumes than healthy subjects (p < 0.05). The univariate correlation coefficient between the left hippocampal volume and KCL (1–20), which pertains to instrumental and social activities of daily living, was the largest (ρ = −0.54, p < 0.0005) among the KCL subdomains. Additionally, both KCL (1–25) and KCL (1–20) demonstrated useful diagnostic potential (93% specificity and 90% sensitivity, respectively) for identifying individuals in the lowest 25% of the left hippocampal volume (AUC = 0.82). Conclusions: Our study suggests that frailty questionnaires focusing on daily vulnerability, such as the KCL, can effectively detect hippocampal atrophy in COPD patients.

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