Frailty and mortality among dialysis patients

Frailty is a clinical state in which there is an increase in the individual’s vulnerability to developing increased dependency and/or mortality when exposed to a stressor. Since the mean age of dialysis patients is increasing worldwide, frailty has recently come to be considered one of the risk factors for mortality in the older dialysis population. The prevalence of frailty among dialysis patients has ranged from 3.0to 10-fold higher than that among community-dwelling elderly, depending on the method of assessing frailty and patient characteristics. Since frailty has been found to be associated with higher mortality, independent of clinical characteristics and comorbidity, interventions to improve frailty have the potential to contribute to better quality of life and lower mortality among dialysis patients. In addition, greater attention should be focused on the possibility that early rehabilitation of dialysis patients might improve poor outcomes. Clinical research should aim to devise an adequate strategy to address frailty, including identifying the optimal timing for intervention.