Research advances in frailty and osteoarthritis in the elderly / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Osteoarthritis (OA)is a chronic degenerative joint disease and one of the most common causes of pain and disability in the elderly.Frailty is a physiological state characterized by the deregulation of multiple physiologic systems in an aging organism,leading to the loss of homeostatic capacity that exposes the elderly to disability,disease,and eventual death.Prefrailty occurs at an earlier stage of the frailty spectrum and is closely associated with later development of frailty.A large number of studies,using various diagnostic criteria,have addressed the interrelationship between OA and frailty during their disease development processes.Identifying prefrailty and frailty is necessary for the choice of intervention measures and the prevention or delay of disability occurrence in elderly OA patients.Frailty can be considered as a new prognostic factor for mortality,especially in individuals with OA.