Relationship between 24-h movement behaviors and frailty—a scoping review

TL;DR

This review explores how daily movement behaviors like sleep, physical activity, and sedentary time relate to frailty and suggests ways to prevent or manage it.

Contribution

The study provides a comprehensive overview of 24-hour movement behaviors and their links to frailty, highlighting methodological gaps and practical implications.

Findings

Longer sedentary time, especially in prolonged bouts, is linked to higher frailty.

Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity is consistently associated with lower frailty.

Reallocating sedentary time to physical activity, especially MVPA, offers the greatest theoretical benefit.

Abstract

Frailty is associated with increased risks of falls, disability, hospitalization, and mortality. The 24-h movement behaviors (24HMB) framework conceptualizes sleep, sedentary behavior (SB), light-intensity physical activity (LPA), and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) as mutually constrained components of daily time use and may inform frailty prevention and management.

This scoping review maps evidence on associations between 24HMB and frailty and identifies methodological gaps to inform future research and nursing practice.

This review adheres to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) and follows Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) guidance.

We searched PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, and Web of Science. We included observational studies of adults aged ≥18 years. Exposures were objectively measured or validated self-reported sleep, SB, LPA, and MVPA, including step counts, breaks in SB, isotemporal substitution models (ISM), and compositional data analysis (CoDA). Outcomes were frailty or prefrailty assessed using validated instruments. Quality was appraised with JBI tools.

Thirty-three studies showed good methodological quality. Longer SB, particularly prolonged, uninterrupted bouts, was associated with higher frailty. Greater MVPA was consistently associated with lower frailty. Light-intensity physical activity was generally beneficial but often attenuated when MVPA or total activity volume was modeled. Sleep fragmentation and poor sleep quality were associated with frailty. Isotemporal substitution models and compositional data analysis indicated that reallocating sedentary time to MVPA would yield the largest theoretical benefit, followed by reallocating to LPA. Higher daily step counts and more frequent or higher-intensity breaks in SB were associated with lower frailty.

Evidence supports a 24-h integrated movement-behavior approach centered on MVPA, combined with reducing prolonged SB and improving sleep quality, for the prevention and nursing management of frailty.

The study design and analytical protocol were prospectively registered on the Open Science Framework (OSF). The unique identifier is S39Y4, and the publicly accessible URL is https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/S39Y4.

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