Identifying frailty using the ICF: Proof of concept.

摘要

Frailty has emerged as an increasingly important concept in the understanding and care of the elderly. Despite this, no consensus has been established in the frailty literature regarding a theoretical framework, operational definition, or measurement strategies.;The International Classification of Function, Disability and Health (ICF) provides an attractive framework to exemplify and consolidate the diverse literature on frailty. The ICF is a classification system developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide a common language and universal conceptual framework to describe health and health-related states.;The overall objective of this proof-of-concept study is to determine the extent to which the identification and measurement of frailty is compatible with the ICF framework.;A total of 156 words were identified by health professionals from two articles that were shown to be influential in the frailty literature. These words were subsequently linked to the ICF following a standardized mapping protocol. The 202 codes that were identified comprised a comprehensive set of functional status indicators (FSIs), or characteristics that describe the clinical entity of frailty, in a uniform and standardized manner. A total of 21 of these FSIs were identified from items on both the Francophone and Anglophone versions of the Systeme de Mesure d'Autonomie Functionelle (SMAF), a measure specific to quantifying function in the elderly.