Although we know that obese older adults may be surviving heart surgery with more complications, few researchers have studied how well they can manage daily activities like eating, bathing, walking short distances, dressing, getting in or out of bed, and using the toilet.

To learn more about this key issue, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania examined information from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study.

They published their findings in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The article is titled, “The Association between Obesity, Age, and Functional Decline in Survivors of Cardiac Surgery.”

The researchers focused on 1,731 participants from the study (which included 20,000 participants) who had heart surgery. Of these individuals, 34% were obese and 66% were not obese. The researchers followed the participants over a two-year period.

The researchers learned that:

• 22% of obese participants who had heart surgery said they were less able to perform their daily activities within two years of their surgery.
• 17% of overweight or normal weight participants who had heart surgery reported that they were less able to perform their daily activities.
In the two years following heart surgery, 10.5% of obese participants died;
• 13.8% of non-obese participants died.

The researchers said that obese older adults who survive heart surgery may live with greater degrees of functional decline in the two years following the procedure, especially in participants who were younger than 80-years-old. However, in people aged 80 and older, the relationship between obesity and the ability to function well was considered more complex.