How best to operationalize frailty is controversial [ 1- 3], but one method uses a frailty index [ 4].
Use of a frailty index may be a useful predictive marker in patients admitted to critical care and further work is warranted to define the prognostic value of frailty scoring.
Using pre-determined criteria, a frailty index (FI) specific to persons with IDD was developed based on items in the Resident Assessment Instrument - Home Care (RAI-HC), and using the assessments of 7,863 individuals with IDD in Ontario (aged 18–99 yeand) admitted to home care between April 1st, 2006 and March 31st, 2014.
The analyses were also repeated with a frailty index using 25 variables without three non-respiratory smoking-related variables (hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cerebrovascular disease), providing similar results.
17 Following earlier research, we constructed a frailty index using 39 variables that included objective, subjective, and proxy reports of cognitive functioning, disability, auditory and visual ability, depression, heart rhythm, and numerous chronic diseases (details available on request).
In 2009, in a study that followed 4082 community-dwelling elderly adults (mean age of 73 years), a frailty index using 34 variables was developed, which allows stratifying elderly Mexicans into several groups according to the degree of the risk of mortality [ 14].
Using the established cutoff point of a frailty index score equal to or higher than 0.14, of the 228 patients, 57 were excluded from the sample because they had a score lower than 0.14, 171 had a score equal to or higher than 0.14, and 16 refused to complete the baseline questionnaire.
A frailty index was developed using 34 variables.
