Frailty syndrome

The frailty syndrome is a collection of symptoms or markers that place (mostly) older adults at increased risk of adverse events such as death, disability, and institutionalization. The term "frailty" has been used quite often in the gertontological literature without a firm definition of the state. Recently though Linda Fried (2001) and associates operationalized and validated a measure of frailty in the Cardiovascular Health Study and then later in the Women's Health and Aging Study. Frailty is determined based on cutoffs in 5 components - Muscle weakness, weight loss, low physical activity, exhaustion, and slow walking speed. Subjects below certain cutoffs on 3 or more components are deemed frail, those with 1-2 components below cutoffs are deemed intermediately or moderately frail, and those scoring higher than cut points on all 5 measures are deemed non-frail or robust.