Conceptual Models of Frailty: Accumulation of Deficits

Frailty was introduced to explain why people of the same age have varying degrees of risk. The deficit accumulation approach shows that as people age, they accumulate health deficits, and that more deficits confer greater risk. Frailty results because not everyone of the same age has the same number of deficits. This is readily quantified using a frailty index, which has been translated to preclinical models. The frailty index grades risk without requiring special instrumentation. It allows a central clinical challenge to be addressed, which is that with age, diseases rarely travel alone.