Association of Intrinsic Capacity Decline with Frailty, Polypharmacy, Nutritional Status, and Fall Risk among Older Adults: A Cross-sectional Study from a Tertiary Care Center

Background: Intrinsic capacity reflects an individual’s physical and mental abilities and influencing healthy aging; its decline often precedes disability and is linked with frailty, malnutrition, polypharmacy, and falls. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional observational study was conducted at a tertiary care center in Western Maharashtra, India, among 165 adults aged 60 years and above. Participants were enrolled by consecutive sampling. Sociodemographic details, comorbidities, medication use, fall history, and functional parameters were recorded. Intrinsic capacity was assessed across cognition, locomotion, vitality/nutrition, vision, hearing, and psychological domains. Frailty was assessed using the Clinical Frailty Scale, nutritional status using the Mini Nutritional Assessment–Short Form (MNA-SF), and data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 27.0. Results: The mean age was 72.77 ± 9.14 years. Intrinsic capacity decline was present in 147 (89.1%) participants, with severe decline in 76 (46.1%). Locomotion was the most commonly impaired domain (106, 64.2%), followed by vitality/nutrition (74, 44.8%) and psychological domain (61, 37.0%). The mean BMI was 22.49 ± 3.83 kg/m 2 , the mean number of current medications was 4.32 ± 2.09, the mean Timed Up and Go duration was 12.98 ± 3.26 s, the mean MNA-SF score was 11.58 ± 2.01, the mean Clinical Frailty Scale score was 4.27 ± 1.57, and the mean number of impaired intrinsic capacity domains was 2.29 ± 1.34. Intrinsic capacity decline was significantly associated with frailty, nutritional status, polypharmacy, and fall risk. Conclusion: Intrinsic capacity decline was highly prevalent among older adults. Routine multidomain geriatric assessment may help identify vulnerable individuals and guide early preventive interventions.