Identification of Frailty in Primary Care with a Focus on Indigenous Populations

• Main Author: Lewis, Ebony
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: UNSW, Sydney 2024
• Subjects: Identification of Frailty in Primary Care; Focus on Indigenous Populations; First Nations
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/102874; https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/30444

The world’s population is ageing at rates unprecedented in human history. One of the most challenging expressions of population ageing is frailty. Frailty is a syndromal diagnosis rather than a disease and represents a state of increased vulnerability resulting from cumulative age-related decline across multiple physiological systems. Frailty is highly prevalent among community dwelling older adults and recognised as a public health priority due to its association with numerous adverse health outcomes such as falls, residential aged-care admissions, recurrent hospitalisations, poor quality of life, and mortality. Importantly, frailty is modifiable and potentially reversible with intervention meaning that timely identification of those who are frail, or at risk of developing frailty is key. Primary care represents an opportunity to identify and engage the general community population at risk, and guidelines have made recommendations to this effect, however, time is limited and additional frailty assessments may be too burdensome to be operationalised in clinical practice. A streamlined way to identify frailty is an essential first step to support healthcare for the ageing Australian population. The First Nations population of Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are not only ageing rapidly they also experience higher levels of morbidity at younger ages and are thus highly likely to have a greater prevalence and incidence of frailty than the non-First Nations population. However, evidence in this area is sparse, furthermore, First Nations concepts of health and ageing differ from Western models, and culturally appropriate and acceptable assessment and engagement models around frailty identification may also differ for this population group. Thus approaches to frailty for the general older Australian population may need to be tailored or complemented to suit this population. We need to gain an understanding of frailty in First Nations adult populations. This thesis set out to investigate the ...