REVIEW   

Minerva Medica 2018 December;109(6):472-8

DOI: 10.23736/S0026-4806.18.05821-4

Copyright © 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Frailty beyond the clinical dimension: discussion about the underlying aspect of the social capital

Carlotta M. JARACH ¹ ✉, Matteo CESARI ^{2, 3}

¹ Laboratory of Quality Assessment of Geriatric Therapies Services, Department of Neuroscience, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS, Milan, Italy; ² Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, University of Milan, Milan, Italy; ³ Foundation IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy

It is repeatedly advocated in the medical literature the need of reshaping the care process in order to better address the unmet clinical needs of the highly vulnerable and complex ageing population. In the past twenty years, frailty has assumed the role of an arising and independent geriatric condition, different from disability and multimorbidity. Frailty is highly prevalent in older persons. The proper management of frailty relies on the accurate collection and interpretation of a wide spectrum of information about the health status of the individual. However, the optimal intervention plan cannot be correctly designed and implemented without the evaluation of the social characteristics of the frail older person. Unfortunately, this aspect has frequently been overlooked and research is still lagging on the topic. The main scope of this review is to present current evidence and propose possible axes of investigation in this field.

KEY WORDS: Frailty - Geriatrics - Aging - Social capital - Social sciences