Blog and Commentary

The 2023 International Conference on Frailty and Sarcopenia Research is coming up soon! This annual conference, which showcases state-of-the-art research on frailty and sarcopenia, will be held in Toulouse, France from March 22nd-24th.  There is also a virtual attendance option. Continue Reading

We are bringing back our celebrated #FrailtyFighter social media campaign on Twitter!  And we are proud to partner with the International Conference on Frailty and Sarcopenia Research (ICFSR) Congress to highlight global researchers in this space leading up to the ICFSR 2023 Conference in Toulouse, France, from March 22-24 as a key part of this effort. Continue Reading

The Johns Hopkins Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC), a long-running NIH funded research program focused on frailty research, was recently awarded a supplemental grant to investigate the intersecting biological pathways that drive early onset of physical frailty in a subset of individuals living with and without HIV through the study of mitochondrial decline. Continue Reading

Frailty in older adults with cancer is associated with poor outcomes such as mortality (Augustin et al., 2016; Soubeyran et al., 2012), functional decline (Hoppe et al., 2013) and toxicity from chemotherapy (Hurria et al., 2011). Major organizations like the American Society of Clinical Oncology recommend using a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) to identify vulnerabilities such as functional impairment, comorbidities, and cognition as well as institute CGA-driven interventions like exercise or nutritional rehabilitation (Mohile et al., 2018) that have been shown to significantly reduce the risk of high-grade toxicity without compromising survival in vulnerable cohorts with geriatric impairments (Mohile et al., 2020). Continue Reading

Recently, I asked Dr. Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen, Professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work and Director of the Goldsen Institute, to share her thoughts about frailty in older LGBTQ+ adults. Dr. Fredriksen-Goldsen is a pioneer in research on LGBTQ+ aging.  She led the nation’s first federally-funded longitudinal study of the health and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ people over the age of 50, “Aging with Pride: National Health, Aging, and Sexuality/Gender Study.” When I brought up the topic of frailty-specific insights in this population, Dr. Fredriksen-Goldsen noted that frailty was a significant problem for LGBTQ+ older adults:  Continue Reading  

Exciting news! Our website has a new clinical section on Pulmonary Function and Frailty. As the field of Frailty Science is relatively young, research in specific specialties may be scarce—and this is true of the associations between the respiratory system and frailty. Consequently, we asked one of Johns Hopkins’ top experts in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine to review literature in this space, and compose this new section; we are grateful to Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, an Assistant Professor in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, for taking up this challenge. Continue Reading

Beyond the substantial financial costs associated with chronic wounds (estimated to be between $28-96 billion dollars in Medicare costs in 2018; Nussbaum et al., 2018), the subsequent chronic inflammation and disability arising from such wounds are significant exacerbating factors that limit health-span in older adults. A recent study from a multidisciplinary wound center demonstrated that frailty prevalence, using the deficit accumulation model, was approximately 75% among their patients and wound healing rate was slower in frail individuals (Espaulella-Ferrer et al., 2021). Continue Reading

The recently funded Johns Hopkins Artificial Intelligence and Technology Collaboratory for Aging Research (JH AITC; website) seeks to improve the health and well-being of older adults through novel uses of artificial intelligence and new technologies.  Combatting frailty and its outcomes are important aims of this Collaboratory.  Continue Reading

The sudden passing of Dr. Judy Kasper, a prominent expert in the study of disability in later life and its implications for older adults, their loved ones, and health care policies, struck all who knew her with feelings of sadness and shock.  To celebrate Dr. Kasper as both a stellar scientist and a wonderful colleague and friend, we asked some of her collaborators to reflect on their work with her and the impact she had on their careers and lives.  We have also summarized Dr. Kasper’s important role in facilitating frailty research in the National Health and Aging Trends Study. Continue Reading

Objective measures of function are critical to both the clinical care of older adults and to research on healthy aging and physical frailty.  While telehealth had already been on the rise in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic skyrocketed the use of remote and virtual assessments, creating an urgent need to adapt methods for patient care and research data collection to the new environments. Clinicians and investigators, struggling with the need to collect functional information remotely over video conferencing or by telephone, need guidance regarding the safety, feasibility and utility of various options and measures. Continue Reading