Index or illusion: The case of frailty indices in the Health and Retirement Study.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Frailty is a geriatric syndrome that has been defined differently with various indices. Without a uniform definition, it remains unclear how to interpret and compare different frailty indices (FIs). With the advances in index mining, we find it necessary to review the implicit assumptions about the creation of FIs. We are concerned the processing of frailty data may introduce measurement error and bias. We aim to review the assumptions, interpretability and predictive power of FIs regarding mortality.

Methods

Three FIs, the Functional Domains Model proposed by Strawbridge et al. (1998), the Burden Model by Rockwood et al. (2007) and the Biologic Syndrome Model by Fried et al. (2004), were directly compared using the data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS

SUBMITTER: Chao YS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6051600 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature