who provided uncompensated technical assistance.

Frailty is a clinical state in which there is an increase in an individual’s vulnerability for developing increased dependency and/or mortality when exposed to a stressor. Frailty can occur as the result of a range of diseases and medical conditions. A consensus group consisting of delegates from 6 major international, European, and US societies created 4 major consensus points on a specific form of frailty: physical frailty. Physical frailty is an important medical syndrome. The group defined physical frailty as “a medical syndrome with multiple causes and contributors that is characterized by diminished strength, endurance, and reduced physiologic function that increases an individual’s vulnerability for developing increased dependency and/or death.”Physical frailty can potentially be prevented or treated with specific modalities, such as exercise, protein-calorie supplementation, vitamin D, and reduction of polypharmacy.Simple, rapid screening tests have been developed and validated, such as the simple FRAIL scale, to allow physicians to objectively recognize frail persons.For the purposes of optimally managing individuals with physical frailty, all persons older than 70 years and all individuals with significant weight loss (≥5%) due to chronic disease should be screened for frailty.

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Findings indicate that the core set of items in the MDS 2.0 work equally well in community and nursing home settings. New items are highly reliable. In tandem, these instruments can be used within the international community, assisting and planning care for older adults within a broad spectrum of service settings, including nursing homes and home care programs. With this community-based, second-generation problem and care plan-driven assessment instrument, disability assessment can be performed consistently across the world.

; for the SAGE Study Group Context.-Cancer pain can be relieved with pharmacological agents as indicated by the World Health Organization (WHO). All too frequently pain management is reported to be poor. Objective.-To evaluate the adequacy of pain management in elderly and minority cancer patients admitted to nursing homes. Design.-Retrospective, cross-sectional study. Setting.-A total of 1492 Medicare-certified and/or Medicaid-certified nursing homes in 5 states participating in the Health Care Financing Administration's demonstration project, which evaluated the implementation of the Resident Assessment Instrument and its Minimum Data Set. Study Population.-A group of 13 625 cancer patients aged 65 years and older discharged from the hospital to any of the facilities from 1992 to 1995. Data were from the multilinked Systematic Assessment of Geriatric Drug Use via Epidemiology (SAGE) database. Main Outcome Measures.-Prevalence and predictors of daily pain and of analgesic treatment. Pain assessment was based on patients' report and was completed by a multidisciplinary team of nursing home personnel that observed, over a 7-day period, whether each resident complained or showed evidence of pain daily. Results.-A total of 4003 patients (24%, 29%, and 38% of those aged Ն85 years, 75 to 84 years, and 65 to 74 years, respectively) reported daily pain. Age, gender, race, marital status, physical function, depression, and cognitive status were all independently associated with the presence of pain. Of patients with daily pain, 16% received a WHO level 1 drug, 32% a WHO level 2 drug, and only 26% received morphine. Patients aged 85 years and older were less likely to receive morphine or other strong opiates than those aged 65 to 74 years (13% vs 38%, respectively). More than a quarter of patients (26%) in daily pain did not receive any analgesic agent. Patients older than 85 years in daily pain were also more likely to receive no analgesia (odds ratio [OR], 1.40; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.13-1.73). Other independent predictors of failing to receive any analgesic agent were minority race (OR, 1.63; 95% CI, 1.18-2.26 for African Americans), low cognitive performance (OR, 1.23; 95% CI, 1.05-1.44), and the number of other medications received (OR, 0.65; 95% CI, 0.5-0.84 for 11 or more medications). Conclusions.-Daily pain is prevalent among nursing home residents with cancer and is often untreated, particularly among older and minority patients.

This study proposes a practical and simple method of identifying patients who are at an increased risk of an ADR. This approach may be useful in clinical practice as a tool to identify patients at risk and in research to target a population that can benefit from interventions aimed to reduce drug-related illness.

our results obtained from a representative sample of very old and frail subjects show that sarcopenia is associated with mortality, independently of age and other clinical and functional variables.