Frailty Study Guide: Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention
This comprehensive study guide offers essential insights into frailty, a common clinical syndrome characterised by the gradual decline of physiological systems, particularly in older adults. It is an invaluable resource for healthcare professionals, medical students, and anyone interested in understanding frailty and how to manage its impact on health.
 
Key Features:
What is Frailty? Learn about frailty, its causes, and how it leads to increased vulnerability to health stressors like mild infections or medication changes. It is most common in older adults and is associated with poor health outcomes like falls, hospitalizations, and disability.
Common Signs of Frailty: Understand the hallmark features of frailty, including low energy expenditure, reduced muscle strength (grip strength), reduced gait speed, self-reported exhaustion, and unintentional weight loss.
Five Frailty Syndromes: Discover how frailty often manifests as one or more of the following: falls, immobility, delirium, incontinence, and increased sensitivity to medications.
 
Risk Factors for Frailty: Learn about the risk factors for frailty, including age, socioeconomic challenges, gender (more common in women), ethnicity (higher risk in Asian populations), and living conditions (urban dwellers are more affected).
Prevention & Management: Explore strategies to delay the onset of frailty and reduce symptom severity, including tailored physical activity (strength and balance exercises) and a healthy, balanced diet to support muscle mass and energy.
 
Electronic Frailty Index (eFI): Understand how the eFI works in primary care to assess frailty by accumulating health deficits such as tremors, falls, polypharmacy, and sensory impairment.
 
Rockwood Clinical Frailty Scale: Learn how the Rockwood Scale classifies frailty based on physical and cognitive fitness, from "Very Fit" to "Terminally Ill."
Physiological Changes in Frailty and Drug Handling: Understand how frailty affects the body's ability to process medications, leading to increased sensitivity, prolonged drug half-life, and a higher risk of side effects, especially with drugs like digoxin and lithium.
Medication Reviews and Deprescribing: Explore the importance of medication reviews for frail patients, focusing on polypharmacy, the appropriateness of current medications, and deprescribing criteria to reduce the risk of drug-related harm.
 
Whether you’re preparing for exams, working in clinical settings, or looking to deepen your understanding of frailty, this guide provides clear, structured, and practical information to help manage frailty in older adults effectively.