Social frailty, a corollary to physical frailty, increases the risk of negative health outcomes and earlier death among older folks, researchers say.
Essentially, people who are physically frail have less physiological strength and a reduced biological ability to bounce back from illness or injury.
Social frailty assumes that each factor contributes to an older person’s vulnerability and that they interact with and build upon each other. “It adds dimensions of what a clinician should know about their patients beyond current screening instruments, which are focused on physical health,” said Dr. Linda Fried, an internationally known frailty researcher and dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.
“If someone is socially vulnerable, perhaps they’ll need more help at home while they’re recovering from surgery,” Dr. Kenneth Covinsky, a geriatrician at UCSF and co-author of the recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article, said about the implications. “Or maybe they’ll need someone outside their family circle to be an advocate for them in the hospital.”
“I’ll ask, ‘Who do you depend on most and how do you depend on them?’” said Dr. William Dale, the Arthur M. Coppola Family Chair in Supportive Care Medicine at City of Hope, a comprehensive cancer center in Duarte. “Do they bring you food? Drive you places? Come by and check on you? Give you their time and attention?”
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