Frailty measurement and its contribution to clinical care and health services: a commentary

Shannon Wu,Bruce Leff

doi:10.1186/s13584-018-0225-0

Abstract

Frailty is associated with poorer quality of life and higher healthcare utilization and spending. Despite its importance, no clear consensus exists on the definition of frailty. The recent IJHPR article by Buch et al. significantly contributes to the advancement of Israel’s understanding of frailty by estimating for the first time the prevalence of frailty in the country. This commentary discusses the context of past and current advancements in measuring frailty and discusses how frailty measurement can contribute to both clinical care and the organization of health services to care for frail older adults in Israel and other developed countries.

Highlights

The important IJHPR paper by Buch and colleagues characterizes, for the first time, frailty prevalence in Israel’s older population [1]
We place Buch’s paper in the context of past and current advancements in measuring frailty and discuss how frailty measurement can contribute to both clinical care and the organization of health services to care for frail older adults
Large scale screening tools at the point of care may be feasible as developments in data infrastructure continue to advance. These may be especially helpful in identifying patients most likely to benefit from innovative clinical models that care for frail older adults with and without other behavioral and social needs, and in identifying those most likely to benefit from underutilized approaches such as physical therapy, social services, or polypharmacy reduction

Summary

Introduction

The important IJHPR paper by Buch and colleagues characterizes, for the first time, frailty prevalence in Israel’s older population [1]. * Correspondence: swu50@jhu.edu 1Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article important for clinical care, research, and policy planning [4].

Results

Conclusion