The concept of frailty has received increasing attention among clinicians and researchers. Clinicians often say, “I know frailty when I see it, but I can’t define it”. This is not surprising given that in spite of a growing body of knowledge, there is no widely accepted definition of frailty. The literature abounds with different models, criteria and definitions. While consensus has yet to be a...

Frailty and malnutrition are both highly prevalent in the older population and have therefore become principle topics in geriatric research. Frailty is of multifactorial origin and is regarded as a fundamental risk factor for deteriorating health status and disability in older people. It is estimated that prevalence rates for frailty and pre-frailty reach as high as 27% and 51%, respectively. T...

Diabetes and frailty are two conditions that frequently occur concurrently and are increasingly prevalent in the older patient. We review the concept, epidemiology and consequences of frailty, and the implications of the presence of frailty in the management of diabetes. Frailty is associated with decreased quality of life, a risk of falls, new or increased disability, hospitalization, and incr...

There are over 5 million Americans with heart failure (HF), the majority of whom are over age 65. Frailty is a systemic syndrome associated with aging that produces subclinical dysfunction across multiple organ systems and leads to an increased risk for morbidity and mortality. The prevalence of frailty is about 10% in community-dwelling elderly and 20% in those with advanced HF, and increases ...

As Canada's population ages, frailty - with its increased risk of functional decline, deterioration in health status, and death - will become increasingly common. The physiology of frailty reflects its multisystem, multi-organ origins. About a quarter of Canadians over age 65 are frail, increasing to over half in those older than 85. Our health care system is organized around single-organ syste...

BACKGROUND The concept of frailty is rapidly gaining attention as an independent syndrome with high prevalence in older adults. Thereby, frailty is often related to certain adverse outcomes like mortality or disability. Another adverse outcome discussed is increased health care utilization. However, only few studies examined the impact of frailty on health care utilization and corresponding cos...

Correlated time-to-event data are commonly encounted in biomedical research, often as recurrent e v ent data or clustered data. To accommodate the correlation among survival times within the proportional hazards model framework, frailty m o d e l s h a ve beendeveloped. Clustered and recurrent event data may require two frailties, leading to a need for appropriate tests for frailty model select...

BACKGROUND The gamma-Gompertz model is a fixed frailty model in which baseline mortality increases exponentially with age, frailty has a proportional effect on mortality, and frailty at birth follows a gamma distribution. Mortality selects against the more frail, so the marginal mortality rate decelerates, eventually reaching an asymptote. The gammaGompertz is one of a wider class of frailty mo...

Personal mastery is an important determinant in shaping physical health across middle and late life. The modified effect of mastery on relation between frailty and adverse health outcome remains unclear. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the prognostic role of mastery on frailty among older people by using a nationwide representative population-based cohort. In total, 715 community...

Frailty is a clinical condition related to changes in metabolism, to sarcopenia, and to decline in muscle mass and strength, bone mineral density, and physical function with aging. The pathophysiology of frailty is multifactorial and associated with comorbidities. Testosterone is implicated in regulating metabolic functions, maintenance of muscle and bone, and inhibition of adipogenesis. In old...