TY  - JOUR
T1  - FRailty in dialysis-dependent patients with end-stage renal disease
AU  - Kutner NG, Zhang R
Y1  - 2013/01/14
N1  - 10.1001/2013.jamainternmed.750
JO  - JAMA Internal Medicine
SP  - 78
EP  - 79
VL  - 173
IS  - 1
N2  - 
In a national cohort of patients starting renal replacement therapy, Bao and colleagues1 classified 73% as frail using a modification of criteria proposed by Fried et al2 in their seminal delineation of a frailty phenotype. Bao et al1(p1071) describe frailty as “extremely common among patients starting dialysis in the United States” and, more generally, as a “clinical syndrome highly prevalent in the population with end-stage renal disease (ESRD).” While we fully support the recognition of frailty and understanding of contributors to frailty as valuable research objectives, the article by Bao et al1 provides a case in point that assignment of frailty classification is very dependent on the particular criteria and operational measures that are applied. In particular, reliance on a patient-reported measure of physical functioning (PF) as a substitute for performance-based measures of weakness and slowness specified in the frailty phenotype validated by Fried et al2 may yield a different picture of the prevalence of “frailty.”

SN  - 2168-6106
M3  - doi: 10.1001/2013.jamainternmed.750
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/2013.jamainternmed.750
ER  -