Ugeskrift for Laeger · Nov 21, 2016
Frail patients and surgery
By Henriksen NA, Helgstrand F, Gögenur I
It is estimated that 15% of patients above 65 years of age are frail. Frail patients have significantly higher risk of post-operative complications when undergoing both elective and emergency surgery than patients who are not frail. Therefore, it is recommended that all patients above 65 years are frailty scored prior to a surgical procedure. It seems advisable to include the following items in a multimodal frailty score: evaluation of the patient's cognitive ability, functional status, nutritional status and pulmonary and cardiac function.