I. What is Frailty?
Transcript:
Narrator: One of the biggest global healthcare challenges is the medical and economic burden of caring for older adults. In the US, healthcare for older patients accrues approximately 50 billion dollars per year in medical costs. (citation) . However not everyone ages the same way and simply looking at an older person is not enough to determine their health or functional status. Substantial research has identified that certain individuals are especially vulnerable to poor health outcomes such as dependence, disability, and death.
Narrator: Frailty syndrome can affect upwards of 15% (citation: frailty txt) of the older adult population in the US. Why care?
Narrator: If you are a clinician or healthcare professional, you may have older patients that may benefit from frailty assessment. Frailty is a strong predictor of disability, falls, medication side effects, poor wound healing, hospitalization, institutionalization, surgery outcomes and mortality (needs citation). Understanding your patient’s frailty status can provide crucial health information for their adequate care and treatment planning.
The combination of increased lifespan and reduced fertility is leading to rapid aging of populations around the world. However, the increase in longevity does not mean an extended period of healthy life in old age (Xue et al, 2018). As worldwide populations age, it is important to understand and clinically implement the measurement of frailty syndrome, which greatly affect the older populations’ he alth and quality of life.
Frailty syndrome is defined as a clinically recognizable state of increased vulnerability resulting from aging-associated declines in reserve and function across multiple physiologic systems, so that the ability to cope with everyday or acute stressors is compromised. In the United States, frailty syndrome affects 15% of the older non-nursing home population aged 65 and older and between 3.5% and 27.3% o f the older adult population worldwide (Xue et al, 2018).
Frailty is known to be a strong predictor of disability, hospitalization, institutionalization, and mortality. It can also be used to predict surgery outcomes, transplant waitlist times, cancer therapy tolerance and recovery times for older patients (Xue et al, 2018).
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References
Xue, Q., PhD. (2011). The frailty syndrome: Defnition and natural history. Clinics in Geriatric Medicine, 27(1), 1-15. doi:10.1016/j.cger.2010.08.009
Xue, Q., Buta, B., Varadhan, R., Szanton, S., Chaves, P., Walston, J., & Bandeen-Roche, K. (2017). Chapter 9: Frailty and geriatric syndromes. In M. Brown Bessette (Ed.), Aging, place, and health: A global perspective (1st ed., pp. 191) Jones and Bartlett Learning.