Dr Cynthia Delgado Outlines How Frailty Affects Outcomes in Patients Receiving Hemodialysis

Frailty significantly raises the risk of developing disabilities as a result of hemodialysis, so even patients who are intermediately frail should be monitored, said Cynthia Delgado, MD, associate professor of medicine at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center and University of California San Francisco Medical Center.

Transcript

How does frailty affect outcomes in patients receiving hemodialysis?

Well, I’ve done quite a bit of work in frailty, and I will say that I consider frail patients the most vulnerable of all our patient populations, they’re at highest risk of developing disabilities and progressive issues with those disabilities. And so for me, they represent a vulnerable patient population, and we should be targeting even individuals who are intermediately frail, because I think that, based on some of the studies I’ve done and a cohort study that I actually just finished running, where I found that even individuals who were intermediate frail, were also at significant risk of issues.