[Biological fragility syndrome in the elderly: systematic review].

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to identify the prevalence and assessment strategies of Biological Fragility Syndrome in the Elderly. METHODS For the development of this study was it was done a search in electronic databases (Medline/PubMed) and the reference lists of articles identified using the following key words/terms in English: "frailty" and `frail" in conjunction with the terms "elderly", "aging" and "prevalence". These terms/descriptors were combined using the logical operators available in search engines. The initial electronic search resulted in 1 865 manuscripts. The process of analysis of the studies involved reading titles, abstracts and full texts. After all these phases, 35 manuscripts met the inclusion criteria of the review. RESULTS The results indicated that women, with rage from 7.3 % to 21.6 %, are frailer than men, with percentages ranging from 4 % to 19.2 %. CONCLUSIONS Differences in prevalence rates of prefrailty and frailty should be minimized, with stimulus for standardization for the evaluation of human frailty.