Frailty rehabilitation: A community-based program to promote healthy aging

Frailty is an important clinical state that contributes to falls, hospitalization, institutionalization and death. When an individual simultaneously has many health problems, a frailty "tipping point" may be triggered by even a minor stressful event such as adding a new drug or urinary tract infection. Our research suggests that approximately 23% of Canadians over age 65 are frail, and by age 85 this estimate increases to over 40%. As we learn more about frailty and its consequences, there is an urgent need to develop community-based interventions that will prevent or delay frailty in older adults. Our proposed study will examine if frailty rehabilitation program is an effective community-based intervention to promote healthy aging. We will recruit 324 frail community-dwelling older adults (aged 70+) into three groups: Group 1: will receive twice-weekly socialization program Group 2: will receive twice-weekly group exercise program Group 3: will receive the multimodal frailty rehabilitation program including twice-weekly group exercise, and additional frailty management (nutrition assessment and medication review plus protein supplementation, as needed). We will examine how effective frailty rehabilitation is by tracking changes in physical function and frailty status at 0, 6 and 12-months. We will also examine healthcare by tracking emergency department visits, hospitalization and institutionalization for 1-year after the intervention. Results of this study will help us to understand the best ways to keep older adults healthy, independent, and active for as long as possible. Our research team are international leaders with expertise in healthy aging, rehabilitation, geriatric and family medicine.