Frailty

Fraily development is largely determined by low levels of nutrients, increased expression of inflammatory biomarkers, and age-related oxidative stress (OS). These frailty-related dysfunctions may lead to impairments in muscle structure and function, causing the onset of a muscle-catabolic state. As such, they may contribute to the development of sarcopenia, which is both a cause and a consequence of frailty. Measuring biomarker patterns such as dietary, OS, inflammatory, and muscle-related biomarkers (e.g., 3-methylhistidine (3MH)) has been touted as a means to understand the complex mechanisms behind frailty. Despite this, data on multi-biomarker patterns remains scarce. The aim of this study was to measure a variety of circulating biomarkers in an attempt to characterise their patterns. The existence of an association between these patterns and frailty status in non-frail and frail in-hospital patients was then assessed.

The Hospital Frailty Risk Score (HFRS) was developed to detect frail individuals based on data extracted from hospital databases. An association between the HFRS, 30-day mortality, 30-day emergency hospital readmission, and long length of stay (LOS) was originally validated in populations of elderly patients admitted to hospital via the emergency department. Data regarding the HFRS’ predictive ability in the context of direct admissions and post-discharge outcomes is thus lacking. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between the HFRS and 30-day mortality, 30-day hospital readmission, and long LOS by analysing in- and out-patient healthcare in France.

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.