Frailty is a multidimensional concept characterized by the loss of reserves, including energy, physical ability, cognition, and health. The prevalence of frailty strongly increases with age and is a very serious threat to public health systems sustainability. The results of a 1 year intervention study in 4 European Countries (Greece, the UK, Spain and the Netherlands) studying the relationship between the frequency of physical activity (PA) among the older old people and the degrees of frailty, showed that both maintaining a regular frequency of PA and increasing to a regular frequency of PA are associated with maintaining or improving the level of frailty among European community-dwelling older adults older than 70 years, not only in the physical domain, but also in the psychological and social domains of frailty. Our findings support the development of new public health strategies to encourage adults older than 70 years to maintain a regular frequency of PA to prevent and delay not only physical but also psychological and social frailty and hence overburden of health systems in Europe. For more information, go to the upcoming Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jgs.16391
Physical Activity Uptake by the Older Adults and Frailty: Results from a Longitudinal Study in 4 Countries
