Sarcopenia affects activities of daily living recovery and hospitalization costs in older adults in convalescent rehabilitation wards

Our aim was to investigate the effect of sarcopenia on the rate of activities of daily living (ADL) recovery and hospitalization costs in older patients who were admitted to convalescent rehabilitation wards. ADL recovery, evaluated by the Functional Independence Measure motor efficiency score, was significantly lower in patients with sarcopenia than in those without sarcopenia. Moreover, the hospitalization costs were higher in patients with sarcopenia than in those without sarcopenia. Implementation of appropriate interventions for sarcopenia may accelerate ADL recovery and decrease hospitalization costs. This study aimed to investigate the impact of sarcopenia on activities of daily living (ADL) recovery and hospitalization costs in older patients admitted to convalescent rehabilitation wards. This prospective cohort study included 104 patients aged ≥ 65 years who were admitted to convalescent rehabilitation wards. The primary outcome was ADL recovery as evaluated by the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) efficiency during hospitalization, and the secondary outcome was hospital-related costs. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify whether sarcopenia was associated with FIM-motor efficiency and hospitalization costs. Among the patients, 68.3% were females, and the mean age was 82.3 ± 8.3 years. The prevalence of sarcopenia was 73.1%. The FIM-motor efficiency score was significantly lower in patients with sarcopenia (median 0.38; interquartile range 0.27–0.52) than in those without sarcopenia (median 0.55; interquartile range 0.34–0.87) (P = 0.009). Hospitalization costs were higher in patients with sarcopenia (32,813 ± 15,184 dollars) than in those without sarcopenia (26,879 ± 10,248 dollars) (P = 0.058). Multivariate analysis showed that sarcopenia was independently associated with FIM-motor efficiency (standardized β =  − 0.236, P = 0.014, R2 = 0.40) and hospitalization costs (standardized β = 0.15, P = 0.027, R2 = 0.70) after adjusting for confounding factors. We found that sarcopenia reduces the FIM-motor efficiency and increases direct hospitalization costs in older patients admitted to convalescent rehabilitation wards. Therefore, it is necessary to design interventions to prevent sarcopenia and improve the efficiency of ADL recovery and reduce direct hospitalization cost.