Purpose of review: Frailty is common in chronic kidney disease (CKD) and is a predictor of adverse outcomes. The current article reviews the most common frailty measures available, gives an overview of their use in the chronic kidney disease population, and summarizes their strengths and limitations.
Recent findings: Frailty is increasingly recognized as a potent predictor of adverse outcomes in all stages of chronic kidney disease. Recent investigations have demonstrated that the clinical perception of frailty by healthcare personnel or patients themselves is an inaccurate measure of frailty. The clinical frailty scale, a simple point-of-care tool for the assessment of frailty, has been shown to be a predictor of mortality in individuals on dialysis.
Summary: The Fried criteria have been most extensively used in chronic kidney disease. However, other criteria using self-reported outcomes, clinical and cognitive criteria have also been shown to predict adverse outcomes and may be more applicable in clinical settings. Many of these still require further validation in the chronic kidney disease population.