The impact of frailty on the management of atrial fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation (AF) increases in prevalence with age and patients with AF often have multiple cardiovascular and cardiovascular-related co-morbidities. Although age is a well-established risk factor for incident cardiovascular disease or worse outcomes with cardiovascular disease, there is marked heterogeneity amongst people of the same age. The concept of frailty was established to identify older people who have an accumulation of deficits. There is also alignment of frailty with ageing, multimorbidity and polypharmacy, resulting in a ‘clinically complex’ group of patients.