In order to prevent short-term complication, patients with frailty syndrome require special attention and care in the perioperative context. The implementation of a frailty screening and if possible, an advanced geriatric assessment in the clinical routine should take into account the clinical setting, the patient population as well as time and human resources. Individual treatment pathways must allow for a multidisciplinary exchange and a multimodal approach when dealing with these challenging patients. Key aspects of such pathways include physiotherapeutic interventions, nutritional counselling, adequate pain medication, delirium prevention, patient blood management and extended perioperative monitoring. An interdisciplinary shared decision-making process together with patients can help develop realistic and individual treatment concepts to improve safety and outcome of frail patients.
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