Reconocimiento de la fragilidad en personas mayores que viven en la comunidad: Un desafío pendiente

Introduction: Elderly represent one of the population segments with the greatest growth projection at the global and national levels. Knowledge of the concept of fragility allows health care workers who are in contact with the elderly to identify and establish interventions to avoid excessive functional decline and adverse health outcomes. Objective: To characterize the population of fragile elderly living in the community who are treated in primary health care. Methods: Observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study of 538 elderly living in the community, users of primary health center of La Pintana and Puente Alto in Chile. Results: The clinical profile of the elderly population living in the community corresponds to older people, low schooling, women, with functional, cognitive and affective results, take more medication, have more chronic diseases, and have Been hospitalized in the past year with respect to elderly classified as non-fragile. Conclusions: The clinical profile reported in this study will be useful in the clinical setting in order to prevent discapacity. Fragility can be modified, avoiding functional decline, institutionalization and PM death. It is suggested to consider the established profile in order to emphasize people and thus avoid the adverse results associated with the fragility condition.