From both an individual and a public health perspective, frailty is one of the most important conditions affecting older people. Along with dementia, which is really just cognitive as opposed to physical frailty, it is a devastating syndrome. Frailty predisposes to recurrent hospitalizations and leads to the dreaded cascade of iatrogenic complications once someone is in the hospital. Frailty leads to nursing home placement and to disability and death. So a recent consensus statement discussing how to approach frailty is one of the most exciting and significant papers to appear in the recent geriatric literature. Published in a third tier medical journal, it’s only by chance that I stumbled on the article at all.
No one wants to be labeled “frail.” It’s up there along with “elderly” or “old” as a term everyone seems to want to avoid. But far better to prevent or treat the condition than to pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s time for doctors to pay attention to frailty—to recognize when it’s present and to intervene when possible. How’s that for a New Year’s Resolution!
Reference:
Murriel Gillick, “Fragile Handle with care”, http://blog.drmurielgillick.com/2013/12/fragile-handle-with-care.html