Frailty may be a risk marker for adverse outcome in patients with congestive heart failure

Aims: To examine the availability of frailty concept with objective criteria for risk stratification in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF).

Methods and results: Study design was secondary analysis of our CHF cohort. We selected 181 patients who completed clinical assessments and were successfully followed 2-year post discharge. To set frailty criteria, grip strength <26 kg in men and <17 kg in women (weakness) and performance measure for activities of daily living-8 ≧21 points (exhaustion) were defined for predicting 6 min walking distance <300 m (slowness) by the receiver-operating characteristics. During 2 years of follow up, subjects who met all the criteria had a 4 times greater risk of cardiac event compared with those with no frailty criteria.

Conclusion: The findings of present study suggest that frailty criteria may serve as a new clinical marker for management of patients with CHF.