Assessing the mortality risk in older patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of sepsis: the role of frailty and acute organ dysfunction.

Background: A prognostic stratification of mortality risk in older patients with sepsis admitted to medical wards is often challenging.

Aims: To evaluate the ability of the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, serum biomarkers (lactate and C-Reactive Protein, CRP), and measures of comorbidity and frailty in predicting in-hospital and 6-month mortality in a cohort of older patients admitted to an Acute Geriatric Unit (AGU) with a diagnosis of sepsis.

Methods: All patients aged 70 years and over consecutively admitted to our AGU with sepsis in the study period were included.

Developing a Frailty Index from routinely collected data in the Emergency Department among of hospitalized patients.

Purpose: The number of frail patients admitted to Emergency Departments is increasing. The so-called Frailty Index based on the age-related accumulation of deficits models is often perceived as excessively burdening or not feasible in busy clinical settings due to its quantitative nature. We wanted to prove the possibility of generating a Frailty Index in the Emergency Department from data that are routinely collected during the standard clinical practice in this setting and to test its predictive capacity for adverse events.