Public health and clinical approach to proactive management of frailty in multidimensional arena.

Background: Demographic changes have forced communities and people themselves to reshape ageing concepts and approaches and try to develop actions towards active and healthy ageing. In this context, the European Commission launched different private-public partnerships to develop new solutions and answers on questions related to this topic. The European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, including topic related action groups as well reference sites committed towards a common action to facilitate active and healthy ageing, has contributed key elements for interventions, scaled up best practices and evaluated impact of their action to drive innovation across many regions in Europe over the past years. Methods: This paper describes action taken by A3 action group in the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. This paper gives an overview of how the partnership combined the view on frailty coming from public health as well as the clinical management. Results: Within different European regions, to tackle frailty, EIPonAHA partners have conceptualized functional decline and frailty, making use of good practice models working well on community programs. The A3 Group of EIPonAHA has worked alongside a process of innovation, targeting all ageing citizens with the clear goal of involving communities in the preventive approach. Conclusion: Engagement needs of older people with a focus on functionally rather than disease management as primary objective is considered as an overarching concept, also embracing adherence, compliance, empowerment, health literacy, shared decision-making, and activation. Furthermore, training of staff working with ageing people across all sectors needs to be implemented and evaluated in future studies.

The Risk of Malnutrition in Community-Living Elderly on Admission to Hospital for Major Surgery.

BACKGROUND: With prevalence rates varying from 10 to 60%, malnutrition in acute hospitals has been acknowledged as a persistent problem in older adults worldwide. This publication is to describe the nutritional condition and associated risk factors of malnutrition in free living elderly on admission to the hospital for major elective surgery. METHODS: A cross sectional, multi-center study in eight surgical wards in three Belgian hospitals. A total of 204 free living elderly, aged 74.8 ± 6.6 years (Mean ± SD), on admission to the hospital for major elective surgery and requiring at least 3 days of hospitalization, were consecutively recruited to the study. The nutritional status was assessed on admission and before surgery using the recommended NRS-2002. Data on possible associated factors were collected during post-operative stay using a structured questionnaire. RESULTS: A total of 107 patients (51.4%) were at high risk of malnutrition. In patients older than 70 years (n 150) the risk of malnutrition increased up to 66%. None of the included patients reported preoperative referral to a dietician or nutritional advice nor any prescribed preoperative nutritional supplement. In a multivariate regression analysis it appeared that none of the possible associated factors were significantly associated with malnutrition. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms the high risk of malnutrition in community living elderly on admission to hospital for elective surgery. According to the NRS-2002 these patients might benefit from nutritional support. However, it appears that nutritional support is not yet commonly implemented in preoperative care for this population at risk.