Frailty

Frailty is characterised by increased vulnerability to acute stressors. As it is common in adults with heart failure (HF), frailty has been used as a predictor of mortality and morbidity for HF patients. Frailty Phenotype, the most commonly used frailty instrument in HF, is used for the physical examination of frailty. While physical frailty instruments are commonly used in clinical practice, a proportion of studies have expressed issues with such tools. As HF may have detrimental effects on physical function, the use of physical instruments may lead to an under- or over-estimation of frailty. This study aims to compare the predictive ability of three physical frailty instruments (the Frailty Phenotype, the St Vincent’s Frailty instrument and the SHARE-FI); and three multi-domain instruments (the FRAIL scale, the Deficit Accumulation Index, and St Vincent’s Frailty plus cognition 7 and mood) in adults with HF.

Frailty is a state of vulnerability, recognised clinically, where patients experience an ageing-associated decline in their physical and cognitive abilities. There are two main scales for measuring frailty. The Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) is often used for intensive care unit patients. The Diseases-10 Modified Frailty Index (mFI) is also used; it is derived from the understanding of 11 comorbidities. However, it was unknown how the two compare. In this study of 7,001 patients, it was found that a greater proportion of patients were categorised as frail using the CFS, and this scale also predicted better those who would survive past the 6-month mark versus those who would die. This indicates that the two scales are not equivalent, and the mFI should not be used for frailty. This review by A. Subramaniam et al. aimed to highlight the differences between the two scales, the Clinical Frailty Scale and the Diseases-10 Modified Frailty Index, to determine which is a better predictor of frailty.