In this study of Rafael Ogaz Gonzalez, two methods commonly applied in medicine and research were used. These approaches classify people as “Robust,” “Pre-frail,” or “Frail” based on the number and type of health problems they have.
One major factor linked to frailty is having chronic diseases. When someone has two or more of these diseases, it’s known as multimorbidity. While we often think of these diseases as simply adding up, they actually tend to occur in specific combinations. These combinations differ depending on age, sex, income, marital status, and lifestyle habits. This study refers to them as multimorbidity configurations (MCs).
Our work shows that it is possible to identify these MCs, and that people with certain combinations of diseases have a higher or lower risk of becoming frail or dying. We used data from two large cohorts of older adults: one from Costa Rica, and another from the north of the Netherlands. The analysis revealed that some MCs allow individuals to recover from frailty, while others make recovery unlikely. Configurations that include cardiovascular diseases or complex treatments are usually the highest-risk.
In short, how quickly someone becomes frail depends on the types of chronic conditions they have—and these vary across different populations.
