Frailty and Elderly Care Research
- Group summary: The award winning Frailty and Elderly Care research group, part of the Academic Unit for Ageing and Stroke Research, addresses the needs of an ageing population. This population has life-long accumulated exposures which contribute to chronic disease and give rise to associated physical and mental health co-morbidities.
The award winning Frailty and Elderly Care research group, part of the Academic Unit for Ageing and Stroke Research, addresses the needs of an ageing population. This population has life-long accumulated exposures which contribute to chronic disease and give rise to associated physical and mental health co-morbidities. In response to the health service challenges posed by multi-morbidity in the elderly, our research encompasses:
- The nature of frailty in the elderly and its impact on service use.
- Mental health morbidity (delirium, dementia, depression) in physical healthcare settings.
- Evaluation of services for older people, for example community hospitals, day hospitals and intermediate care.
We are a national and international leading centre for frailty research. The development of the Electronic Frailty Index (eFI) led by Andy Clegg, allowing for the first time identification of people with frailty through routine data, has been transformational. Use of the eFI is now in the new General Medical Services contract, a contractual requirement for practices to screen for frailty, allowing them to identify and consider offering treatment options to their frail elderly patients. The eFI, winner of the RCP Excellence in Patient Care Awards 2017, also featured in the 2016 NICE Multimorbidity Guideline, is being used by numerous research teams to identify people with frailty in order to develop tailored services, technology and interventions.
Our recent projects include
(MOCHA) A study to understand and optimise community hospital care in the NHS
(PROSPER) Personalised Care Planning for Older People with Frailty
(CARE 75+) The Community Ageing Research Study
(HERO) Home-based Extended Rehabilitation for Older people
Optimising blood pressure management for older people with frailty
(OPTIMISE) Developing a novel system of care targeting risk factors for five manifestations of frailty to maintain the independence of older people in hospital and post-discharge
Community based complex interventions to sustain independence in older people, stratified by frailty: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.
HOMEHEALTH – Enabling health and maintaining independence for older people at home
Who we are
Unit Lead
Professor Anne Forster - Professor of Stroke Rehabilitation and Head of Unit; NIHR Senior Investigator
Senior Academics
Professor Andrew Clegg - Professor of Geriatric Medicine
Dr Elizabeth Teale - Clinical Senior Lecturer in Geriatric Medicine
Emeritus Professor
Professor John Young - Professor of Elderly Care Medicine
FRAILTY PERSONALISED CARE PLANNING (PROSPER)
HOME-BASED EXERCISE INTERVENTION FOR OLDER PEOPLE WITH FRAILTY (HERO)
MANIFESTATION OF FRAILTY (OPTIMISE)
THE COMMUNITY AGEING RESEARCH STUDY (CARE 75+)
ENABLING HEALTH AND MAINTAINING INDEPENDENCE FOR OLDER PEOPLE AT HOME (HOMEHEALTH)
NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer
Funding sources
National Institute for Health Research
Dunhill Medical Trust
Key publications
Hale M, Shah S, Clegg A. Frailty, inequality and resilience. Clinical Medicine 2019;19(3):219-223. doi: 10.7861/clinmedicine.19-3-219.
Todd OM, Wilkinson C, Hale M, Wong NL, Hall M, Sheppard JP, McManus RJ, Rockwood K, Young J, Gale CP, Clegg A. Is the association between blood pressure and mortality in older adults different with frailty? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Age Ageing 2019. afz072, https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afz072
Brown L, Young J, Teale E, Santorelli G, Clegg A. A Cross-Sectional Study of the Impact of Pain in Older People with Frailty: Findings from the Community Ageing Research 75+ (CARE75+) Study. Advances in Geriatric Medicine and Research 2019;1:e190002. https://doi.org/10.20900/agmr20190002
Heaven A, Brown L, Young J, Teale E, Hawkins R, Spilsbury K, Mountain G, Young T, Goodwin V, Hanratty B, Chew-Graham C, Brundle C, Mahmood F, Jacob I, Daffu-O’Reilly A, Clegg A. Community ageing research 75+ study (CARE75+): an experimental ageing and frailty research cohort. BMJ Open 2019;9(3):e026744. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-026744
Crocker T, Brown L, Clegg A, Farley K, Franklin M, Simpkins S. Young J. Quality of life is substantially worse for community-dwelling older people living with frailty: systematic review and meta-analysis. Quality of Life Research 2019;1-16 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-019-02149-1
Wilkinson C, Todd O, Clegg A, Gale CP, Hall M. Management of atrial fibrillation for older people with frailty: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Age Ageing 2019;48(2)196–203. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afy180
Brundle C, Heaven A, Brown L, Teale E, Young J, West R, Clegg A.Convergent validity of the electronic frailty index. Age and Ageing 2018. https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/48/1/152/5132769
Godfrey M, Young J, Shannon R, Skingley A, Woolley R, Arrojo F, Brooker D, Manley K, Surr CA. The Person, Interactions and Environment Programme to improve care of people with dementia in hospital: a multisite study. Health Services and Delivery Research 2018;6(23).
Clegg A, Hassan-Smith Z. 2018. Frailty and the endocrine system. The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology;6(9), pp. 743-752 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(18)30110-4/fulltext
Teale EA, Munyombwe T, Siddiqi N, Schuurmans M, Young J. A prospective observational study to investigate utility of the Delirium Observational Screening Scale (DOSS) to detect delirium in care home residents. Age Ageing 2018;47(1):56-61