Frailty in the clinical scenario

Abstract

The aim of health care has changed substantially—after centuries of trying to live longer, the time for living better has come. This change in focus has two main drivers—societies' life expectancies are approaching natural lifespans,1 and the gains in life-years have been accompanied by an increase in the rates of disability and a consequent absence of independence in many parts of the world. In the past two decades, a large proportion of the burden of disease has shifted globally owing to morbidity from non-communicable diseases and resulting disability than rather premature death.