Frailty in intensive care (ICU) trauma patients: a prospective observational study.

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The elderly population in Australia is continuing to increase with the number of people over 65 years of age increasing from approximately 2.7 million in 2006 to 3 million in 2011. As people living longer they are exposed to a higher risk of trauma. Studies have shown that the elderly trauma population (over 65 years of age) have significantly higher mortality, increased ventilator days and longer ICU and hospital length of stay (LOS) compared to a younger population. Frailty is a widely used term to classify a multi-factorial syndrome comprising of physical and cognitive changes leading to increased vulnerability. Frailty is associated with increased risk of adverse events which are associated with higher cost of health care and care needs of patients. The prevalence of frailty amongst the critically ill population has been reported as 13% of all patients and 32.8% in patients over 50 years of age. Frail patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) have been shown to have higher in-hospital mortality and lower quality of life at 6 month follow up. During the ICU admission, frail patients had more major adverse events and longer ICU and hospital LOS. There is no clear consensus on how to measure frailty, however two methods have been utilised in ICU research, the Phenotype Frailty (PF) and the Clinical frailty score (CFS). Historically elderly trauma patient outcomes have been investigated in relation to age and co-morbidities. This study aims to determine whether frailty is predictive of mortality and functional outcomes, which of two frailty measures is more effective at predicting mortality and functional outcomes and whether frailty is more effective at predicting mortality and functional outcomes compared to other patient measures (i.e. age, co-morbidities or injury severity score). METHODS: Prospective observational study, in 2 Australian ICUs (the Alfred Hospital and Royal Perth Hospital). We aim to recruit 200 patients admitted to ICU under the trauma unit, 50 years of age and over. Primary outcome measures include mortality (in ICU, hospital, 6 months and 12 months) and function using the GOS-E. Secondary outcome measure include (but not limited to) frailty, pre-morbid function, level of treatment in ICU, functional ability at ICU discharge.