A reliable measure of frailty for a community dwelling older population.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Frailty remains an elusive concept despite many efforts to define and measure it. The difficulty in translating the clinical profile of frail elderly people into a quantifiable assessment tool is due to the complex and heterogeneous nature of their health problems. Viewing frailty as a 'latent vulnerability' in older people this study aims to derive a model based measurement of frailty and examines its internal reliability in community dwelling elderly.

Method

The British Women's Heart and Health Study (BWHHS) cohort of 4286 women aged 60-79 years from 23 towns in Britain provided 35 frailty indicators expressed as binary categorical variables. These indicators were corrected for measurement error and assigned relative weights in its association with frailty. Expl

SUBMITTER: Kamaruzzaman S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2988728 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature