Frailty in older adults: moving from measurement to management

Incorporating routine assessment of frailty into health care would benefit both older people and the health system

The past two decades have seen a tremendous research effort dedicated to defining, measuring and validating the frailty construct. Large cohort studies of older adults living in the community have consistently found that frail people are at risk of a range of adverse outcomes, including death, disability, and institutionalisation.1 More recently, there has been a move from population‐based cohort studies of frailty to analyses of data collected during routine clinical encounters. In this issue of the MJA, Khadka and colleagues2 contribute to this body of translational research with a large retrospective cohort study of community‐dwelling Australians undergoing Aged Care Assessment Program (ACAP) eligibility assessment.