Introduction

Given the ageing population around the world [2, 53]. Findings also highlight the need to remember that the World Health Organization’s Guidelines on Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) support enhancing physical and mental capacity with a thorough strategy catered to each older adult’s unique needs and goals, including multimodal exercise, nutritional interventions, and cognitive stimulation, supported by suitable health and social care systems and service providers [53, 54]. Although lower handgrip strength has been linked to depression [22, 23] and other conditions, such as future fall [55], functional difficulties in activities of daily living [13, 53], disability [56, 57], a higher prevalence of cancer [58], and short-term mortality [59] in old age, greater discussion in the context of biological ageing is necessary to determine the relevance of these findings for public policy. However, there are signs of what can help older persons live better lives, such as policies and initiatives that support better nutrition and target older populations in low-resource sectors. Handgrip strength can be increased with currently available therapies, such as increasing protein intake [60]. To promote healthy ageing, more steps must be taken to lessen the disparity in access to proper nutrition, for instance by focusing on people of lower socioeconomic levels [50].

The primary strength of the present study is the first study that assessed the association between biological ageing and the risk level of decreased handgrip strength for community-dwelling men and women aged 60 years and above, using large data from LASI carried in all 28 states and 8 union territories of India. Earlier studies explored how grip strength has been associated with depression [22, 23] and other health conditions [56, 57]. Also, the present study’s participants differ from the above-referenced other studies, probably owing to variations in age, recruitment, and geographical region [31, 35, 42, 43, 47]. For example, studies [8, 39] generated the level of handgrip strength by recruiting adult participants from a few Indian states [13, 20, 39] or a single-center Geriatric Medicine Clinic [8, 39]. Moreover, handgrip strength was measured with a well-accepted, reliable, and valid tool hand dynamometer for community-dwelling older adults [42]. Other strengths are that this is the first study that reported grip strength by gender, hand, and age groups. In addition, this study had a good representative sample for all six age groups to accommodate handgrip for this community-dwelling older population. However, the present study has a limitation in the absence of palm length, upper arm, participant’s height, and waist circumferences [42] along with the participant’s hand sensations [61]. These factors might have influenced the validity of the study results.

Conclusion

Biological ageing was significantly linked to a higher risk of decreased handgrip strength in community-dwelling older Indian, particularly among older men. However, handgrip strength in this population is similar to Saudi Arabians, Singaporeans, and Taiwanese normative values. A thorough geriatric assessment, which takes into account handgrip strength, is required to better identify the likelihood that older people will have a bad prognosis. The findings of this study may be useful in determining handgrip strength measurements for older Indians as part of routine admittance assessments. The association with several influential factors in this population must be investigated through prospective studies.