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Approaching patients based on their frailty, not their age, leads to better medical decision making. A recent best practice guideline from the American College of Surgeons sums up frailty:
“It is well recognized that aging is associated with physiological decline, but this decline is not uniform across all individuals or even across one individual’s organ systems. Frailty is a geriatric syndrome, clinically distinct from age, comorbidity, and functional disability, characterized by age- associated depletion of physiological reserves that leads
to a state of augmented vulnerability to physical stressors and a diminished ability to recover from illnesses.” A trauma specific frailty index exists to identify these high risk patients.
References
BEST PRACTICES GUIDELINES
GERIATRIC TRAUMA
MANAGEMENT
November 2023
Trauma
Programs
American College of Surgeons
https://www.facs.org/media/ubyj2ubl/best-practices-guidelines-geriatric-trauma.pdf