The Edmonton Frail Scale is being used increasingly in the UK as a validated tool for identifying and assessing frailty in a variety of settings, such as the community and pre-operatively in hospital wards.
The main benefits of the tool are that it is relatively straightforward to use, performs well when compared to assessment by a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA), and has high validity, reliability and consistency.
The Edmonton Frail Scale assesses individuals in all the key areas of a person’s life. There are nine criteria with 11 items.
- Cognitive
- General health status (2 items)
- Functional independence
- Social support
- Medication use (2 items)
- Nutrition
- Mood
- Continence
- Functional performance (the Timed Up and Go Test)
These items include practical tests, self-reported responses and fact-based questions. Each item is scored 0-1 or 0-2 points and together these sum to a maximum score of 17. There are five scoring bands associated with different frailty severity.
- 0-5 = Not Frail
- 6-7= Vulnerable
- 8-9= Mild Frailty
- 10-11= Moderate Frailty
- 12-17 = Severe Frailty
The Edmonton Frail Scale is available in electronic form as an App. on both Google Play and the itunes App Store.
It is also available below:
Fullscreen Mode