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. 2007 Jul;62(7):728-30.
doi: 10.1093/gerona/62.7.728.

Frailty thy name is ... Phrailty?

Heather E Whitson  1 , Jama L Purser, Harvey J Cohen
Affiliations

Frailty thy name is ... Phrailty?

Heather E Whitson et al. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2007 Jul.
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Hypothetical Venn diagram depicting incomplete overlap between individuals identified by the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) Frailty Index versus the conventional clinical notion of frailty.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The frailty spectrum within the geriatric functional continuum, based on the Hamerman model. Hamerman’s geriatric functional continuum depicts frailty as one of several midpoints between independence and pre-death (14). In this adaptation, frailty is envisioned as a spectrum of conditions rather than a single entity. The spectrum of frailty includes physiologic vulnerability (phrailty) and full-blown functional frailty (F-frailty) and acknowledges that various understandings of frailty exist within the geriatrics literature and among the lay public. Rather than assuming a consensus definition for frailty, this model allows for multiple frailty phenotypes to be more explicitly defined within the spectrum.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Theoretical relationship between physiologic reserve and psychosocial and/or environmental reserve determining F-frailty status. Any patient with a specific level of physiologic reserve (x axis) and a specific level of psychosocial/environmental support (y axis) can be plotted to a location on this two-dimensional graph. Curve represents a hypothetical F-frailty line, with patients who graph to the left of the curve being defined as F-frail. A patient with fairly good physiologic reserve (who would not exhibit the frailty phenotype, as measured by some indices) might cross this functional frailty threshold if psychosocial support and environmental resources were severely lacking.
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