Mission

Frailty.net is an international educational resource that aims to help geriatricians, primary care physicians and other health care professionals involved in the care of older persons implement frailty into clinical practice.

This educational website is endorsed by the International Frailty and Sarcopenia Conference and is supported by The Journal of Frailty & Aging (JFA).

Geriatrics as a medical specialty is relatively new. It was implemented in many countries in the 1980s to face the needs of a growing number of adults suffering from multiple pathologies, cognitive impairment and severed disabilities. With population aging accelerating rapidly worldwide, increasing demand will require health care providers to develop special knowledge and skills needed to care for older adults. Currently, almost 95% of the geriatric force is involved of the care of already dependent older adults, while patients at risk of becoming dependent are not appropriately taken into account by health care systems.

The concept of frailty opens a new era for geriatric medicine by shifting the focus to prevention and more efficient care. Frailty is a clinical state that develops as a consequence of age-related decline in many physiological systems and increases an individual’s vulnerability for developing further dependency and/or mortality when exposed to a stressor. Efforts at identifying pre-frail and frail individuals and the implementation of multidomain/multimodal interventions will help prevent disability in such patients. Targeted, strong and sustained interventions combining various modalities such as exercise, protein-calorie supplementation, vitamin D and reduction of polypharmacy will be required. High-level clinical research on biomarkers, imaging and new treatment approaches is also needed.

We hope that frailty.net will help geriatricians, primary care physicians and other health care professionals involved in the care of older persons learn more about frailty, keep abreast of the latest developments in this field, and implement frailty into clinical practice.

Selected References
Clegg A, Young J, Iliffe S, Rikkert MO, Rockwood K. Frailty in elderly people. Lancet 2013;381:752-62.
Morley JE, Vellas B, Abellan van Kan G, et al. Frailty consensus: a call to action. J Am Med Dir Assoc 2013;14:392-7.
Vellas B, Cestac P, Moley JE. Implementing frailty into clinical practice: we cannot wait. J Nutr Health Aging 2012;16:599-600.