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Frailty is a better predictor than factors such as age when determining how older adults fare one year after receiving critical care.
A team led by researchers from the University of Waterloo analyzed data from more than 24,000 community-dwelling older adults receiving home care in Ontario who were subsequently admitted into an intensive-care unit (ICU).
They applied three different measures for baseline frailty and found that an individual's level of frailty was linked to survival one year later. The most frail ICU survivors had only a one in five chance of living to one year after discharge.
Clinical frailty is age-related and characterized by a reduced ability to maintain or restore physical, physiological or cognitive functions when subject to health stressors.