Western Sydney clinical researchers from Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals are transforming care for frail older adults across the region, through the work of the Western Sydney Clinical Frailty Registry.
This is Australia’s first and only frailty clinical quality registry.
Aging naturally happens to everybody, but becoming frail is potentially avoidable.
While the ageing process causes a gradual decline in physical and mental function, frailty is defined as a state of vulnerability.
Slow walking speed, weakness, exhaustion are common characteristics of frailty.
Yet despite an aging population, frail older adults are commonly excluded from clinical research, making the team’s research more important.
This exclusion has made it difficult for clinicians to understand and describe the impacts of frailty.
Researchers from the Blacktown Hospital’s Centre for Chronic & Complex Care Research are changing that and recently concluded a study of nearly 600 adults to determine how frailty impacted important outcomes, such as hospital readmission, emergency department visits and mortality.
Lead author Dr Julee McDonagh said “It’s pleasing that we have successfully demonstrated the feasibility of prospectively recruiting and following up a large cohort of frail older adults from a busy acute geriatric medicine service.”
The results were staggering.
Of the 592 people included in the study, 23% of people unfortunately died within 12 months after their hospitalisation and 56% experienced at least one admission within 12 months.
“Older adults who are frail, more vulnerable to stressor events (such as falls or urinary infections) are much more likely to end up back in the hospital or even die within a year after being discharged,” Julee said.
The findings were even more stark for severely frail adults who had an 85% higher risk of rehospitalisation or death compared to non-frail individuals.
“This study reinforces existing evidence that frailty is a key factor predicting adverse health outcomes for older adults,” Julee said.
Julee hopes the results promote the importance of routine use of frailty screening tools such as the Clinical Frailty Scale.
These findings have a broad applicability and the potential to enhance care and improve patient outcomes.
“Identifying frailty early can lead to better care plans, reduced hospital stays, and improved long-term health outcomes for older individuals and their families,” Julee said.
You can read more on this study as featured in The Conversation: What’s the difference between ageing and frailty? One is inevitable – the other is not
Read the full article available on BMC Geriatrics: Frailty in older adults admitted to hospital: outcomes from the Western Sydney Clinical Frailty Registry | BMC Geriatrics | Full Text
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Read more about WSLHD authors and their most recent publications below and you can search for them by ‘author’ here: https://wslhd.intersearch.com.au/wslhdjspui/
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Yoon, C. H., Ross, M. I., Gastman, B. R., Luke, J. J., Ascierto, P. A., Long, G. V., Rutkowski, P. , Khattak, M. , Del Vecchio, M. , de la Cruz, M. L., Mackiewicz, J. , Chiarion-Sileni, V. , Schadendorf, D. , Carlino, Matteo S., Zhao, Y. , Fukunaga-Kalabis, M. , Krepler, C. , Eggermont, A. M. M., Gershenwald, J. E. and Sondak, V. K. Adjuvant pembrolizumab in stage II melanoma: Outcomes by primary tumor location in the randomized, double-blind, Phase III KEYNOTE-716 Trial. Annals of Surgical Oncology. 2025; 00
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