To explore the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine constitutions in hospitalized elderly patients and their influence on the risk of common geriatric syndromes.

A total of 524 elderly patients admitted to the Department of Geriatrics of the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine from November 2023 to October 2024 were selected as the study subjects. According to their traditional Chinese medicine constitutions, patients were divided into the yang-deficient constitution (69 cases), qi-deficient constitution (244 cases), yin-deficient constitution (154 cases), gentleness constitution (15 cases), and other constitution (42 cases). The gender, age, educational level, smoking and drinking habits, and occurrence of common geriatric syndromes (frailty, sarcopenia, disability, and sleep disorders) of these elderly patients with different traditional Chinese medicine constitutions were compared. The different tongue colors of patients with common geriatric syndromes were detected and compared. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the influence of different traditional Chinese medicine constitutions on the risk of common geriatric syndromes.

The proportion of qi-deficient constitution was the highest [46.56% (244 / 524)] among hospitalized elderly patients, followed by the yin-deficient constitution [29.39% (154 / 524)] and yang-deficient constitution [13.17% (69 / 524)]. The gender ( χ² = 13.795, P = 0.008), age (F = 4.806, P < 0.001), frailty ( χ² = 10.640, P = 0.031), sarcopenia ( χ² = 11.530, P = 0.021), disability ( χ² = 13.083, P = 0.011), and sleep disorders ( χ² = 9.870, P = 0.043) among elderly patients with different traditional Chinese medicine constitutions all showed significant differences. Moreover, compared with the yin-deficient constitution, the proportions of males, sarcopenia, and disability were higher in patients with yang-deficient constitution (all P < 0.005), with an older age (P < 0.05), and the proportion of disability was also higher in patients with qi-deficient constitution (P < 0.005). Compared with the gentleness constitution, the proportion of sleep disorders was higher in patients with yang-deficient constitution (P < 0.005). There were statistically significant differences in the proportions of different tongue colors among elderly patients with sarcopenia ( χ² = 11.318, P = 0.010) and disability ( χ² = 19.561, P < 0.001), and the proportion of red tongue in elderly patients with sarcopenia and disability was higher than that of pale red tongue (both P < 0.008). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that compared with the yang-deficient constitution, the risk of sarcopenia in elderly patients with gentleness constitution was significantly reduced [odds ratio (OR) = 0.260, 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.071, 0.958), P = 0.043], and the risk of sleep disorders in elderly patients with qi-deficient constitution [OR = 0.418, 95%CI (0.187, 0.936), P = 0.034] and gentleness constitution [OR = 0.147, 95%CI (0.041, 0.521), P = 0.003] was also remarkedly decreased.

Hospitalized elderly patients predominantly exhibit qi-deficient, yang-deficient, and yin-deficient constitutions. The proportion of geriatric syndromes is high in patients with biased constitutions (especially the yang-deficient constitution), and the risk of sarcopenia and sleep disorders is relatively high in patients with yang-deficient constitution.