{"id":78541,"date":"2025-10-16T14:26:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T14:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/78541\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T14:26:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T14:26:19","slug":"electronic-frailty-index-could-improve-life-for-younger-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/78541\/","title":{"rendered":"Electronic Frailty Index could improve life for younger patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Julie-Anne BarnesBBC Scotland and<\/p>\n

Ian HamiltonBBC Scotland<\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

Claire Dempsey has cerebral palsy and her father Chris believes use of the frailty index might have helped her sooner<\/p>\n

Researchers at a Scottish university have discovered a measure used to assess the health of older people can improve quality of life for younger patients.<\/p>\n

Frailty is a condition usually recognised in the elderly.<\/p>\n

It is defined as a state where someone is more vulnerable to illness, injury or other health changes. <\/p>\n

Experts at Dundee University reviewed one million patient records and found that one in eight people under the age of 65 were suffering from frailty.<\/p>\n

The researchers believe applying software known as the Electronic Frailty Index (EFI) to the younger cohort could lead to fewer hospital admissions and better health outcomes.<\/p>\n

Claire Dempsey is 48 and was born with cerebral palsy. <\/p>\n

She has physical and intellectual disabilities and is supported by a specialist team, as well as her family.<\/p>\n

Her father Chris believes earlier intervention in Claire’s health could have made a big difference.<\/p>\n

“With a disabled child, you’re having to learn as you go along. And you don’t always know what you should expect. And it’s difficult,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think that unless you have people around you who really know what to expect then it’s easy to miss things.<\/p>\n

“And by the time you realise that, there is an issue, you’ve gone beyond it.”<\/p>\n

\"Claire<\/p>\n

Claire Dempsey’s father Chris believes the index should be used from birth<\/p>\n

He added: “The frailty index should cover everyone, from birth. Because I think if you can identify these issues and these frailties earlier in life, then obviously you can start to deal with them.”<\/p>\n

That is where the experts at the University of Dundee are hoping their findings can be implemented.<\/p>\n

The study, led by Dr Daniel Morales from the university’s School of Medicine, explored whether the EFI – which is already used for older adults – could also identify vulnerable younger people who might benefit from early support.<\/p>\n

While most people think of frailty as a weakness that comes with old age, its medical definition refers to a reduced ability of the body to cope with illness or stress.<\/p>\n

Frailty makes people more vulnerable to sudden declines in health, hospitalisation and even early death.<\/p>\n

\"Dr<\/p>\n

The University of Dundee’s Dr Daniel Morales thinks swifter intervention can deal with issues earlier in life<\/p>\n

Dr Morales said: “Our findings suggest that frailty is not confined to older age and that younger adults with frailty may face especially-high risks of poor outcomes.<\/p>\n

“In the long term, using the EFI to identify at-risk younger adults could help clinicians intervene earlier – by adjusting medications, offering rehabilitation or providing targeted support – to prevent avoidable hospital admissions and deaths.<\/p>\n

“Patients could benefit from care that is more personalised to their health needs,” he added.<\/p>\n

For Claire, being assisted day-to-day is helping to manage her complex health needs.<\/p>\n

Tina Poole, an occupational therapist with Capability Scotland, has developed a postural care policy.<\/p>\n

She said: “Poor posture gives you a lot of frailty because you end up with all your body systems not working. <\/p>\n

“You might end up with breathing problems, swallowing problems, digestive issues.”<\/p>\n

Ms Poole explained frailty was about the amount of things an individual needed help with and “and all the things that can go wrong when you don’t get that help”.<\/p>\n

She added: “For people like Claire, the frailty index will only be as good as the diagnosing and investigating because, as we know, people with learning disabilities are still under-investigated and under-diagnosed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julie-Anne BarnesBBC Scotland and Ian HamiltonBBC Scotland BBC Claire Dempsey has cerebral palsy and her father Chris believes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-78541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}