title: Frailty measurement in research and clinical practice: A review.
abstract: One of the leading causes of morbidity and premature mortality in older people is frailty. Frailty occurs when multiple physiological systems decline, to the extent that an individual's cellular repair mechanisms cannot maintain system homeostasis. This review gives an overview of the definitions and measurement of frailty in research and clinical practice, including: Fried's frailty phenotype; Rockwood and Mitnitski's Frailty Index (FI); the Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF) Index; Edmonton Frailty Scale (EFS); the Fatigue, Resistance, Ambulation, Illness and Loss of weight (FRAIL) Index; Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS); the Multidimensional Prognostic Index (MPI); Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI); PRISMA-7; Groningen Frailty Indicator (GFI), Sherbrooke Postal Questionnaire (SPQ); the Gérontopôle Frailty Screening Tool (GFST) and the Kihon Checklist (KCL), among others. We summarise the main strengths and limitations of existing frailty measurements, and examine how well these measurements operationalise frailty according to Clegg's guidelines for frailty classification - that is: their accuracy in identifying frailty; their basis on biological causative theory; and their ability to reliably predict patient outcomes and response to potential therapies.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research in Geriatric Medicine, School of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; School of Public Health, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia. Electronic address: e.dent@uq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Elsa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dent
authors.affiliation: WHO SAGE, Department of Health Statistics and Information Systems, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland; University of Newcastle Research Centre for Generational Health and Ageing, Newcastle, Australia. Electronic address: kowalp@who.int.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kowal
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice & Elderly Care Medicine, EMGO+ Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, EMGO+ Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: e.hoogendijk@vumc.nl.
authors.forename: Emiel O
authors.initials: EO
authors.lastname: Hoogendijk
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016330:Frail Elderly / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans
keywords: Aged, 80 and over; Frail elderly; Geriatric assessment/methods