Instruments for geriatric assessment: new multidimensional assessment approaches

During the last century the considerable increase in life expectancy has led to important demographic changes and, consequently, to new clinical scenarios. Nowadays, chronic conditions, comorbidities and socio-economic factors constitute a relevant health management issue. In particular, the definition of frail elderly individuals has proven to have a strong role in the identification of high-risk patients, their clinical management and prognosis. Reorganization of the medical system has been associated with the development of new instruments for clinical assessment, focused on clinical and socio-economic issues, resulting in a multidimensional geriatric assessment. A large number of approaches have been validated in different clinical settings and populations, until the development of multidimensional instruments demonstrated to have a crucial role in the identification of frail individuals and in their clinical management. Interestingly, some of these, such as the Multidimensional Prognostic Index (MPI), proved to play a relevant role in mortality risk stratification even in particular clinical settings such as chronic kidney disease.