With the number of older persons projected to double to 1.5 billion individuals by the year 2050, population aging has become a burgeoning global phenomenon. With frailty demanding further understanding of its epidemiological characteristics and course, advancements in frailty research are imperative for better understanding of how to diagnose, reduce and mediate the drastic impact frailty has on aging populations. Frailty is an increasingly important concept within both clinical practice and research, being linked to a more than 2 times increase in the risk of adverse outcomes such as mortality, hospitalization, functional disability, and falls.
Within this collection at BMC Geriatrics we are interested in attracting both clinical and experimental studies focused on, but not strictly limited to the following:
Epidemiology and Measurement
- Early life risk factors of frailty
- Characterization of trajectory of frailty development or transitions between frailty states and their implications in clinical care including end-of-life care
- Covid19, other common infections and frailty
- Neuropsychiatric diseases and frailty
- Measurement of pre-frailty
- Cognitive impairment, frailty, and their unique and/or intersecting pathophysiology
- Frailty and other geriatric syndromes (e.g., Falls, cognitive impairment) and their unique and/or intersecting pathophysiology
Frailty biology
- Novel biomarkers of pre-frailty and frailty, particularly related to cellular senescence, intercellular communication, and mitochondrial dysfunction
- Characterization, quantification, and validation of multisystem dysregulations at the cellular, molecular, and/or physiological levels and their relationships with frailty
- Life-course studies of frailty using animal models
Frailty and Clinical Care
- Frailty in sub-specialties (e.g., surgery, HIV, nephrology)
- Frailty and comorbidity: distinguishing frailty and disease-specific pathology and its severity
- Innovative community or clinical trials of interventions either targeting frailty and related biology or improving clinical care of pre-frail and frail older adults (including trial protocols)
- Cost-benefit analysis of frailty interventions
- Frailty and end-of-life care
Interdisciplinary topics
- Frailty and technology (e.g., bioengineering, sensor technology)
- Frailty and ethics
Systematic and scoping reviews and meta-analysis within each area listed above.
Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process overseen by our Guest Editors:
Prof. Ivan Aprahamian and Dr. Qian-Li Xue