Fraglity syndrome increases susceptibility to mechanical ventilation?

Abstract

Some clinical markers of frailty, such as malnutrition, sarcopenia and delirium are predictors of respiratory failure in the elderly. Thus, these risk factors can lead to patients considered vulnerable to greater susceptibility to intubation and mechanical ventilation. Objective: To identify evidence of a causal association between frailty and invasive mechanical ventilation. Methods: MEDLINE search for cohorts showing that the syndrome of frailty increases the risk of intubation and mechanical ventilation. Besides the term frailty, were incorporated and considered also markers of clinical syndrome that may have association with respiratory failure, found in the literature as sarcopenia, delirium, malnutrition. The search was performed using specific search strategy, including search terms (Medical Subject Headings - MeSH) and their synonyms. Furthermore, it was carry out additional search the reference list of included studies. Results: No study met the inclusion criteria of this review. Conclusions: In our study, we found no evidence that the weakness may be a risk factor for invasive mechanical ventilation. There are indications however, that delirium can increase the time under mechanical ventilation. Nevertheless, there is considerable lack of information in this area and a lot of uncertainty, perhaps because there is still no established consensus on the syndrome. There is an expressed need for studies to assess whether clinical markers of frailty are risk factors for invasive mechanical ventilation.