How to Assess Frailty in Preclinical Models and Relate It to Clinical Paradigms.

Frailty is a state of increased risk for adverse health outcomes. Their degree of frailty makes frail individuals more susceptible to cardiovascular disease and mortality than are their fitter counterparts. Frailty can be quantified clinically in various ways. Most common are the frailty phenotype and frailty index. These have been reverse-translated for use in aging mice. This review describes these instruments and explains how they can quantify the degree of frailty in mouse models. Understanding the degree of frailty is critical, as frailty predicts cardiac morbidity and mortality better than do traditional risk factors for cardiovascular diseases.