Background: A standardized, valid and comparable operationalization and assessment of frailty in population-based studies is essential in order to describe the prevalence and determinants of frailty in the population.
Aim: After an introduction to the subject the main goal of a workshop at the 9th annual meeting of the German Society for Epidemiology (DGEpi) was to present approaches and results from four different studies in Germany.
Material and methods: The following four population-based studies were used to describe frailty in Germany: the German health interview and examination survey for adults (DEGS1), the epidemiological study on the chances of prevention, early recognition and optimized treatment of chronic diseases in the older population (ESTHER), the cooperative health research in the region Augsburg (KORA Age) study and the longitudinal urban cohort ageing study (LUCAS) in Hamburg.
Results: The four studies consistently showed that frailty is widespread in older and oldest-old persons in Germany. It is obvious that frailty represents a relevant concept in Germany even if there is currently no uniform basis for operationalization.
Conclusion: Concepts and instruments for the collation of frailty should be included in future population-based studies in order to make a better assessment of older people's health situation and to describe the unused potential for prevention in an aging society.
Keywords: Activities of daily living; Aging; Disability; Functionality; Geriatric assessment.