Understanding frailty
‘Frailty’ is a term that’s used a lot, but is often misunderstood. When used properly, it refers to a person’s mental and physical resilience, or their ability to bounce back and recover from events like illness and injury.
What is frailty?
The term frailty or ‘being frail’ is often used to describe a particular state of health often experienced by older people. But sometimes it’s used inaccurately.
If someone is living with frailty, it doesn’t mean they lack capacity or are incapable of living a full and independent life. When used properly, it actually describes someone’s overall resilience and how this relates to their chance to recover quickly following health problems.
Further Information
Information and advice for older people and their loved ones | Age UK
Improving care and support for people with frailty (nice.org.uk)
Frailty Index Score
The addition of the Electronic Frailty Index Score is to help identify individual whom may benefit from further assessment and enable the practice to identify those who may benefit the most. It is an administration code added to the healthcare record based only on existing information contained in the record. It is not an indicator of a clinical diagnosis of frailty not can it be used as such. The use of the index score is part of improving quality of care to individuals with frailty across Lancashire and South Cumbria.
