Norheim KL, et al. - Researchers planned this study to examine whether persistence in inflammatory status affected the changes in physical function during short-term hospitalization. Regardless of changes in their inflammatory status, hospitalized geriatric patients admitted with inflammation demonstrated only moderate improvement of general mobility during the hospital stay. During hospitalization, however, handgrip strength increased only in those patients who became non-inflammatory.

• The researchers performed a prospective observational study in elderly medical patients at a geriatric department.
• They obtained measurements at admission and 1 week after admission and included de Morton Mobility Index (DEMMI) test, 30-second chair stand test (30-s CST), 4-m gait speed (4-m GST) test, handgrip strength, activity levels determined with ActivPALs, and concentrations of circulating C-reactive protein (CRP) from blood samples.
• In this study, they included patients only with inflammation (C-reactive protein levels ≥ 10 mg·L^-1) at admission.
• They divided patients into those with continued inflammation (CI: CRP remained ≥ 10 mg·L^-1) and those that became non-inflammatory (BN: CRP decreased to < 10 mg·L^-1) after 1 week of admission.

• The researchers categorized 214 patients (67% female) with a median (IQR) age of 86 (81-91) years as inflammatory on admission.
• No baseline differences were found in physical function between CI (n = 138, 67% female) and BN (n = 76, 68% female).
• In both groups (P < 0.05), DEMMI-score increased similarly.
• Only changes in handgrip strength were significantly different between the CI- and BN-group (- 0.05 [- 0.27-0.28] vs. 0.16 [- 0.10-0.41] kg·day^-1, respectively, P < 0.01) when normalized to days between tests.
• They observed a positive association between changes in CRP and length of hospital stay (r_s = 0.30, P < 0.001).