Frailty and and multimorbidity in Elderly people : a shift in management approach

• Frailty and multimorbidity may be regarded as a homeostatic failure of a complex system, and these conditions are commonly encountered in elderly people. The concept of “frailty” has been used to describe an individual’s biological age, and the concept of “multimorbidity” is reserved for the simultaneous presence of two or more chronic health problems in one person. As frailty and multimorbidity are being better understood, optimal management of frail, multimorbid elderly patients is being re-evaluated. In this article, the author provides an overview of frailty, chronic disease, and multimorbidity, and describes how their optimal management can serve as a foundation for developing more expedient, organized, and goal-oriented care of elderly people with complex health problems. The author also describes important challenges for future research and development regarding the management of complex health issues in elderly people; these include transitioning from single disease management to multiple disease management, and expanding the conventional organ-based work-up and treatment plan with repeated evaluations of different systems and functional domains using the comprehensive geriatric assessment method. As noted, one particular challenge that must be addressed is the development of medical records that can serve as a much-needed “geroscope,” enabling an overview of the patient’s health situation, disease management, and follow-up care.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Geriatrik (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Geriatrics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Frailty

multimorbidity

chronic disease

clinical analysis

comprehensive geriatric assessment

Medicine

Medicin

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)