Assessing frailty in senior dogs

Frailty is a measure of the net impact of ageing on the health and function of individuals. It is a manifestation of the decline in homeostatic mechanisms that lead to an increased vulnerability to negative health outcomes such as disability, disease and death. Frailty can be quantified through clinical metrology instruments. The most common of these are the frailty phenotype and the frailty index. Both frailty phenotype and frailty index instruments have been developed for use in dogs. The frailty phenotype is a clinical syndrome assessed by the clinician using a small set of measures to classify a patient as normal, pre-frail or frail. These measures typically include assessments of nutritional status, mobility, muscle strength and tolerance for activity. The frailty index uses a deficit accumulation approach, assessing a large number of variables, from historical and physical examination findings to disease diagnoses and clinical laboratory abnormalities, to generate a continuous frailty score. Measuring frailty allows clinicians to stratify patients by level of risk for negative health outcomes. This can aid in guiding diagnostic and treatment intervention, and facilitate making decisions about treatment options.