Skip to main content

Table 1 Overall prevalence of frailty-related terms identified in the complete eConsult communication between PCP and specialist across all cases (n = 225)

From: Using electronic consultation (eConsult) to identify frailty in provider-to-provider communication: a feasibility and validation study

Frailty topic

Prevalence of terms (Total [LTC, Community])a

Most frequent terms in descending order

Dementiab

165 (122, 43)

“dementia”, “cognitive impairment”, “delirium”, “of dementia”, “with dementia”, “moderate dementia”, “and dementia”, “has dementia”, “for dementia”, “alzheimer’s dementia”

Walking difficultyb

123 (107, 16)

“assistance”, “wheelchair”, “wheelchair bound”, “walker”, “wheelchair dependent”, “in a wheelchair”, “ataxia”, “impaired balance”, “paraplegia”, “is wheelchair bound”

Fallsb

91 (58, 33)

“falls”, “fall”, “fell”, “a fall”, “recent fall”, “multiple falls”, “lost weight”, “had a fall”, “recent falls”, “collapse”

Frailty syndromec

78 (43, 35)

“failure”, “obstruction”, “frail”, “cervical”, “frailty”, “metabolism”, “is frail”, “vulnerable”, “deficit”, “fragile”

Clinical Frailty Scalec

77 (62, 15)

“dependent”, “end-stage”, “vulnerable”, “dependence”, “ADL”, “mildly frail”, “IADL”

Other medical conceptsc

56 (34, 22)

“osteoporosis”, “constipation”, “chronic pain”

Psychologicalc

38 (29, 9)

“depression”

Weight lossb

24 (11, 13)

“weight loss”, “emeron”, “lost weight”, “progressive weight loss”, “losing weight”, “poor appetite”, “lost wt”, “not eating”, “decreased appetite”

Lack of social supportb

18 (10, 8)

“alone”, “social worker”, “no family”, “cannot afford”, “financial assistance”, “case management”

Functional capacityc

18 (6, 12)

“fatigue”, “disability”, “impaired balance”, “atrophy”, “malaise”, “loss of energy”

Clinical assessment of frailtyc

14 (5, 9)

“MoCA”, “Clinical frailty scale”, “medication review”

Health service utilizationc

14 (12, 2)

“palliative care”, “goals of care”, “hospice”

Severe urinary control issuesb

7 (7, 0)

“indwelling catheter”, “chronic indwelling catheter”

Visual impairmentb

7 (4, 3)

“can’t see”, “blind”, “legally blind”

Absence of fecal controlb

3 (3, 0)

“fecal incontinence”, “incontinent of stool”

Pressure ulcersb

2 (2, 0)

“pressure ulcer”, “sacral ulcer”

Malnutritionb

0 (0, 0)

-

  1. Abbreviations: LTC long-term care
  2. aSample sizes: Total n = 225 eConsult cases, LTC n = 113 cases, Community n = 112 cases
  3. bFrailty topics derived from Anzaldi et al.’s ten geriatric syndromes
  4. cAdditional frailty topics added through a focused literature search and expert consultation