Frailty Burden
We will describe the impact of frailty (and sarcopenia) in terms of the prevalence and consequences of frailty. This will help increase awareness amongst consumers, service providers, funders and policy makers. It will also inform health service planning.
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Frailty and health outcomes
Lead investigators: Mr Mark Thompson, Professor Renuka Visvanathan, Dr Olga Theou and Professor Jonathan Karnon
In collaboration with the North West Adelaide Health Study Group, our research team has been investigating the prevalence and trajectory of frailty in South Australia. We will also be investigating the associations and long-term impact of frailty on health outcomes such as quality of life and disability.
Publications:
- Thompson, M. Q., Theou, O., Ratcliffe, J., Tucker, G. R., Adams, R. J., Walters, S. J., & Visvanathan, R. (2020). Frailty state utility and minimally important difference: findings from the North West Adelaide Health Study. Age and Ageing, Volume 50, Issue 2, March 2021, Pages 565–569
- Thompson, M. Q., Theou, O., Tucker, G. R., Adams, R. J., & Visvanathan, R. (2019). Recurrent measurement of frailty is important for mortality prediction: findings from the North West Adelaide Health Study. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 67(11), 2311-2317.
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Thompson, M., Theou, O., Yu, S., Adams, R., Tucker, G., & Visvanathan, R. (2018). Frailty prevalence and factors associated with the Frailty Phenotype and Frailty Index: findings from the North West Adelaide Health Study. Australasian Journal on Ageing, 37(2), 120-126.
Media contact: Professor Renuka Visvanathan
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Frailty prevalence, associated factors and level of agreement between different frailty tools in the Nagoya Longitudinal Study of Healthy Elderly
Lead investigator: PhD candidate Dr Beatriz Martins with supervisors Professor Renuka Visvanathan and Dr Helen Ruth Barrie and Professor Masafumi Kuzuya (Nagoya University, Japan)
The development of accurate and sensitive tools to detect frailty in the community is essential for the planning of health systems, policy makes and development of preventive strategies. This project aims to investigate the prevalence of frailty by deficit accumulation model (frailty index) in Japanese community-dwelling older adults from the Nagoya Longitudinal Study of Healthy Elderly and define risk factors associated with pre-frailty and frailty. Annual assessments of these older adults include investigation of mood, memory, health status, nutrition, physical performance and oral health. Frailty index was built following standard methodology, and investigated its agreement with other frailty tools, frailty prevalence and associated risk factors. We also propose to investigate the long-term impact of nutrition, environmental characteristics on frailty levels over time.
Media contact: Dr Beatriz Martins