The key idea behind the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is that, as people age, they are more likely to have things wrong with them. Those things they have wrong (health deficits) can, as they ...accumulate, erode their ability to do the high order functions which define their overall health. These high order functions include being able to: think and do as they please; look after themselves; interact with other people; and move about without falling. The Clinical Frailty Scale brings that information together in one place. This paper is a guide for people new to the Clinical Frailty Scale. It also introduces an updated version (CFS version 2.0), with revised level names (e.g., “vulnerable” becomes “living with very mild frailty”) and minor edits to level descriptions. The key points discussed are that the Clinical Frailty Scale assays the baseline state, it is not widely validated in younger people or those with stable single-system disabilities, and it requires clinical judgement. The Clinical Frailty Scale is now commonly used as a triage tool to make important clinical decisions such as allocating scarce health care resources for COVID-19 management; therefore, it is important that the scale is used appropriately.
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NUK, OILJ, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Frailty is increasingly recognized as an important construct which has health implications for older adults. The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is a judgement-based frailty tool that evaluates specific ...domains including comorbidity, function, and cognition to generate a frailty score ranging from 1 (very fit) to 9 (terminally ill). The aim of this scoping review is to identify and document the nature and extent of research evidence related to the CFS.
We performed a comprehensive literature search to identify original studies that used the Clinical Frailty Scale. Medline OVID, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Cochrane Library and Embase were searched from January 2005 to March 2017. Articles were screened by two independent reviewers. Data extracted included publication date, setting, demographics, purpose of CFS assessment, and outcomes associated with CFS score.
Our search yielded 1688 articles of which 183 studies were included. Overall, 62% of studies were conducted after 2015 and 63% of the studies measured the CFS in hospitalized patients. The association of the CFS with an outcome was examined 526 times; CFS was predictive in 74% of the cases. Mortality was the most common outcome examined with CFS being predictive 87% of the time. CFS was associated with comorbidity 73% of the time, complications 100%, length of stay 75%, falls 71%, cognition 94%, and function 91%. The CFS was associated with other frailty scores 94% of the time.
This scoping review revealed that the CFS has been widely used in multiple settings. The association of CFS score with clinical outcomes highlights its utility in the care of the aging population.
As nonreplicative cells age, they commonly accumulate subcellular deficits that can compromise function. As people age, they too experience problems that can accumulate. As deficits (symptoms, signs, ...illnesses, disabilities) accumulate, people become more susceptible to adverse health outcomes, including worse health and even death. This state of increased risk of adverse health outcomes is indistinguishable from the idea of frailty, so deficit accumulation represents another way to define frailty. Counting deficits not only allows grades of frailty to be discerned but also provides insights into the complex problems of older adults. This process is potentially useful to geriatricians who need to be experts in managing complexity. A key to managing complexity is through instruments such as a comprehensive geriatric assessment, which can serve as the basis for routine clinical estimation of an individual's degree of frailty. Understanding people and their needs as deficits accumulate is an exciting challenge for clinical research on frailty and its management by geriatricians.
The notion of frailty has evolved for more than 15 years. Although there is no consensus definition, frailty reflects a state of increased vulnerability to adverse health outcomes for individuals of ...the same chronological age. Two commonly used clinical tools, the frailty index and the frailty phenotype, both measure health-related deficits. The frailty index is a ratio of the number of deficits that an individual has accumulated divided by all deficits measured, whereas the phenotype specifies frailty as represented by poor performance in three of five criteria (i.e., weight loss, exhaustion, weakness, slowness, lack of activity). From human studies, animal models of both approaches have been developed and are beginning to shed light on mechanisms underlying frailty, the influence of frailty on disease expression, and new interventions to attenuate frailty. Currently, back-translation to humans is occurring. As we start to understand subcellular mechanisms involved in damage and repair as well as their response to treatment, we will begin to understand the molecular basis of aging and, thus, of frailty.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the prevalence and 10‐year outcomes of frailty in older adults in relation to deficit accumulation.
DESIGN: Prospective cohort study.
SETTING: The National Population Health ...Survey of Canada, with frailty estimated at baseline (1994/95) and mortality follow‐up to 2004/05.
PARTICIPANTS: Community‐dwelling older adults (N=2,740, 60.8% women) aged 65 to 102 from 10 Canadian provinces. During the 10‐year follow‐up, 1,208 died.
MEASUREMENTS: Self‐reported health information was used to construct a frailty index (Frailty Index) as a proportion of deficits accumulated in individuals. The main outcome measure was mortality.
RESULTS: The prevalence of frailty increased with age in men and women (correlation coefficient=0.955–0.994, P<.001). The Frailty Index estimated that 622 (22.7%, 95% confidence interval (CI)=21.0–24.4%) of the sample was frail. Frailty was more common in women (25.3%, 95% CI=23.2–27.5%) than in men (18.6%, 95% CI=15.9–21.3%). For those aged 85 and older, the Frailty Index identified 39.1% (95% CI=31.3–46.9%) of men as frail, compared with 45.1% (95% CI=39.7–50.5%) of women. Frailty significantly increased the risk of death, with an age‐ and sex‐adjusted hazard ratio for the Frailty Index of 1.57 (95% CI=1.41–1.74).
CONCLUSION: The prevalence of frailty increases with age and at any age lessens survival. The Frailty Index approach readily identifies frail people at risk of death, presumably because of its use of multiple health deficits in multidimensional domains.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Frail, older patients pose a challenge to the primary care physician who may often feel overwhelmed by their complex presentation and tenuous health status. At the same time, family physicians are ...ideally suited to incorporate the concept of frailty into their practice. They have the propensity and skill set that lends itself to patient-centred care, taking into account the individual subtleties of the patient's health within their social context. Tools to identify frailty in the primary care setting are still in the preliminary stages of development. Even so, some practical measures can be taken to recognize frailty in clinical practice and begin to address how its recognition may impact clinical care. This review seeks to address how frailty is recognised and managed, especially in the realm of primary care.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
At present, frailty is defined variably. Some consensus on a definition is likely to emerge, but the basis for a successful definition needs to be explored. Here, a classic approach to validation is ...proposed: a successful definition of frailty should be multifactorial but must also manage the many factors in a way that takes their interactions into account. It is likely to be correlated with disability, co-morbidity and self-rated health, and should identify a group that is vulnerable to adverse outcomes. Ideally, it should also be susceptible to animal modelling. In that frailty and age are so bound together, it is also likely that there will be some age at which virtually all people will be frail, by any definition. Apart from being valid, the success of any definition of frailty will depend on it being useful to researchers and clinicians. The need for progress on our understanding of frailty is evident, but for now, there is insufficient evidence to accept a single definition of frailty.
Frailty is a key determinant of health status and outcomes of health care interventions in older adults that is not readily measured in Medicare data. This study aimed to develop and validate a ...claims-based frailty index (CFI).
We used data from Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey 2006 (development sample: n = 5,593) and 2011 (validation sample: n = 4,424). A CFI was developed using the 2006 claims data to approximate a survey-based frailty index (SFI) calculated from the 2006 survey data as a reference standard. We compared CFI to combined comorbidity index (CCI) in the ability to predict death, disability, recurrent falls, and health care utilization in 2007. As validation, we calculated a CFI using the 2011 claims data to predict these outcomes in 2012.
The CFI was correlated with SFI (correlation coefficient: 0.60). In the development sample, CFI was similar to CCI in predicting mortality (C statistic: 0.77 vs. 0.78), but better than CCI for disability, mobility impairment, and recurrent falls (C statistic: 0.62-0.66 vs. 0.56-0.60). Although both indices similarly explained the variation in hospital days, CFI outperformed CCI in explaining the variation in skilled nursing facility days. Adding CFI to age, sex, and CCI improved prediction. In the validation sample, CFI and CCI performed similarly for mortality (C statistic: 0.71 vs. 0.72). Other results were comparable to those from the development sample.
A novel frailty index can measure the risk for adverse health outcomes that is not otherwise quantified using demographic characteristics and traditional comorbidity measures in Medicare data.
Frailty is the most problematic expression of population ageing. It is a state of vulnerability to poor resolution of homoeostasis after a stressor event and is a consequence of cumulative decline in ...many physiological systems during a lifetime. This cumulative decline depletes homoeostatic reserves until minor stressor events trigger disproportionate changes in health status. In landmark studies, investigators have developed valid models of frailty and these models have allowed epidemiological investigations that show the association between frailty and adverse health outcomes. We need to develop more efficient methods to detect frailty and measure its severity in routine clinical practice, especially methods that are useful for primary care. Such progress would greatly inform the appropriate selection of elderly people for invasive procedures or drug treatments and would be the basis for a shift in the care of frail elderly people towards more appropriate goal-directed care.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Abstract
Introduction
The prevalence of frailty at population level is unclear. We examined this in population-based studies, investigating sources of heterogeneity.
Methods
PubMed, Embase, CINAHL ...and Cochrane Library databases were searched for observational population-level studies published between 1 January 1998 and 1 April 2020, including individuals aged ≥50 years, identified using any frailty measure. Prevalence estimates were extracted independently, assessed for bias and analysed using a random-effects model.
Results
In total, 240 studies reporting 265 prevalence proportions from 62 countries and territories, representing 1,755,497 participants, were included. Pooled prevalence in studies using physical frailty measures was 12% (95% CI = 11–13%; n = 178), compared with 24% (95% CI = 22–26%; n = 71) for the deficit accumulation model (those using a frailty index, FI). For pre-frailty, this was 46% (95% CI = 45–48%; n = 147) and 49% (95% CI = 46–52%; n = 29), respectively. For physical frailty, the prevalence was higher among females, 15% (95% CI = 14–17%; n = 142), than males, 11% (95% CI = 10–12%; n = 144). For studies using a FI, the prevalence was also higher in females, 29% (95% CI = 24–35%; n = 34) versus 20% (95% CI = 16–24%; n = 34), for males. These values were similar for pre-frailty. Prevalence increased according to the minimum age at study inclusion. Analysing only data from nationally representative studies gave a frailty prevalence of 7% (95% CI = 5–9%; n = 46) for physical frailty and 24% (95% CI = 22–26%; n = 44) for FIs.
Conclusions
Population-level frailty prevalence varied by classification and sex. Data were heterogenous and limited, particularly from nationally representative studies making the interpretation of differences by geographic region challenging. Common methodological approaches to gathering data are required to improve the accuracy of population-level prevalence estimates.
Protocol registration
PROSPERO-CRD42018105431.
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