The younger frail critically ill patient: a newly recognised phenomenon in intensive care?

Excerpt

Clinicians have used the term ‘frailty’ in everyday practice for many decades and have felt able to identify such individuals despite the lack of agreed clinical definitions. However, advances in conceptualising and defining frailty through more objective criteria have emerged, allowing frailty to be investigated in wider settings [1]. Frailty is described as a clinical picture of loss of physiological and cognitive functioning which leaves patients susceptible to significant deterioration often precipitated by relatively minor stressors, such as infection, surgery or trauma [2]. The syndrome described by Fried et al. [2] has three or more characteristics, such as unintentional weight loss, exhaustion, weakness, slow walking speed and low physical activity. This ‘frailty phenotype’ results in falls, frequent hospitalisation and death. …