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Prevention Strategy for Frailty

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Health Issues and Care System for the Elderly

Abstract

Frailty is one of the most important concerns regarding our aging population. Frailty includes physical, social, oral, psychological, and cognitive aspects due to multisystem declines in physiologic reserve, rendering older adults vulnerable to increased risk of functional disability, falls, hospitalization, long-term care, morbidity, and mortality. Therefore, prevention and treatment of frailty is very important to prolong independence in elderly people. There are numerous factors that contribute to muscle weakness, slow walking speed, and loss of muscle mass in aging adults such as chronic disease, a sedentary lifestyle, and undernutrition, where some factors can be reversed with lifestyle changes and others need specific medications and cannot be reversed. Exercise and nutritional supplementation are among the beneficial treatments promoting healthy and independent lifestyles in the elderly. Evidence reveals that exercise targeted at reducing risk factors is an effective strategy for preventing and/or treating frailty in elderly people. Progressive and moderate-intensity exercise alone or combined with nutritional and hormone supplementation should be encouraged among elderly people to minimize the degenerative physical, psychological, social, and cognitive function that occurs with aging.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo, Japan

    Hunkyung Kim & Tatsuro Ishizaki

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  1. Hunkyung Kim
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  2. Tatsuro Ishizaki
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Correspondence to Hunkyung Kim .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. St. Mary’s College , Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan

    Masakazu Washio

  2. Department of Preventive Medicine, Kyushu University Graduate School of Medicine, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, Japan

    Chikako Kiyohara

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Kim, H., Ishizaki, T. (2019). Prevention Strategy for Frailty. In: Washio, M., Kiyohara, C. (eds) Health Issues and Care System for the Elderly. Current Topics in Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1762-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1762-0_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-1761-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-1762-0

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