Abstract
With aging populations around the world, frailty is becoming more prevalent increasing the need for health systems and social systems to deliver optimal evidence based care. However, in spite of the growing number of frailty publications, high-quality evidence for decision making is often lacking. Inadequate descriptions of the populations enrolled including frailty severity and frailty conceptualization, lack of use of validated frailty assessment tools, utilization of different frailty instruments between studies, and variation in reported outcomes impairs the ability to interpret, generalize and implement the research findings. The utilization of common data elements (CDEs) and core outcome measures (COMs) in clinical trials is increasingly being adopted to address such concerns. To catalyze the development and use of CDEs and COMs for future frailty studies, the Canadian Frailty Network (http://www.cfn-nce.ca; CFN), a not-for-profit pan-Canadian nationally-funded research network, convened an international group of experts to examine the issue and plan the path forward. The meeting was structured to allow for an examination of current frailty evidence, ability to learn from other COMs and CDEs initiatives, discussions about specific considerations for frailty COMs and CDEs and finally the identification of the necessary steps for a COMs and CDEs consensus initiative going forward. It was agreed at the onset of the meeting that a statement based on the meeting would be published and herein we report the statement.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 14-22 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | The Journal of frailty & aging |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jan 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The Canadian Frailty Network (CFN) is a pan-Canadian network focused on the care of older citizens living with frailty. CFN is comprised of nearly 3,500 corporate and nonprofit partners, researchers, scientists, health-care professionals, citizens, students, trainees, educators, and decision-makers. CFN supports and catalyzes original research and innovations to improve the care and quality of life of Canadians living with frailty across all settings of care. The Network also trains the next generation of health-care professionals and scientists. CFN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) Program. In early 2017, in recognition of the work done in its first five years of operation, the Government of Canada announced funding for a second five-term (2017–2022).
Funding Information:
Conflict of interest: Dr. Muscedere reports that he is the Scientific Director of the Canadian Frailty Network which is funded by the Government of Canada. Dr. Kim reports that he is the Assistant Scientific Director of the Canadian Frailty Network which is funded by the Government of Canada. Dr. Rockwood reports personal fees from Clinical Cardio Day-Cape Breton University, personal fees from CRUIGM -Montreal, personal fees from Speaker at Jackson Lab, Bar Harbor, MA, personal fees from Speaker at MouseAge, Rome Italy, personal fees from Lundbeck, personal fees from Frontemporal Dementia Study-Group, personal fees from SunLife Insurance, Japan, outside the submitted work; and Kenneth Rockwood is President and Chief Science Officer of DGI Clinical, which in the last five years has contracts with pharma and device manufacturers (Baxter, Baxalta, Shire, Hollister, Nutricia, Roche, Otsuka) on individualized outcome measurement. In 2017 he attended an advisory board meeting with Lundbeck. Otherwise any personal fees are for invited guest lectures and academic symposia, received directly from event organizers, chiefly for presentations on frailty. He is Associate Director of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging, which is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and with additional funding from the Alzheimer Society of Canada and several other charities, as well as, in its first phase (2013–2018), from Pfizer Canada and Sanofi Canada. He receives career support from the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation as the Kathryn Allen Weldon Professor of Alzheimer Research, and research support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the QEII Health Science Centre Foundation, the Capital Health Research Fund and the Fountain Family Innovation Fund of the QEII Health Science Centre Foundation. All remaining authors have nothing to disclose.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
ASJC Scopus Subject Areas
- General Medicine