Open AccessFrailty in perioperative patients in three South African academic hospitals
Author(s) -
Ngozi Leopold-George,
Gladness Dakalo Nethathe
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
samj. south african medical journal/south african medical journal
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.527
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 2078-5135
pISSN - 0256-9574
DOI - 10.7196/samj.2019.v109i7.13439
Subject(s) - medicine , perioperative , demographics , stressor , population , american society of anesthesiologists , elective surgery , emergency medicine , surgery , demography , clinical psychology , environmental health , sociology
Frailty is a state characterised by diminished physiological reserve that leaves an individual vulnerable to external stressors and delays recovery. Frailty assessments are proving to be more valuable in predicting poor perioperative outcomes than other well-known perioperative risk assessment tools. Very few studies using validated frailty assessment tools have been done to assess the prevalence of frailty in South Africa (SA), and none have assessed the intraoperative implications of frailty in a surgical population.