New frailty course equips healthcare professionals with knowledge of frailty

A new course, "Integrating Frailty Concept in Your Care Delivery" by GERI, aims to provide healthcare professionals with the knowledge and skills to integrate frailty in their care delivery for older patients.

"For frail patients, the role of a multidisciplinary is even more important as it involves management of medical illness, the building of physical reserve, optimising nutrition and coordinate psychosocial support for both patients and their caregivers," said Course Director, Dr Rachel Cheong.

The course was the outcome of a study published by GERI in November 2020 to explore the perspectives of healthcare professionals in acute care settings on frailty and frailty screening in older patients – "Perspectives on Frailty Screening, management and its Implementation Among Acute Care Providers in Singapore: A Qualitative Study".

Dr Cheong said, "It is important to understand the risk factors of different stages of frailty and how they are interrelated, and the steps that we can take to prevent, maintain or even reverse frailty. Due to Singapore's ageing population, all healthcare professionals will encounter pre-frail/frail patients during their clinical practice. By equipping participants with knowledge of frailty, they will be able to identify frail patients who require comprehensive assessment timely; they will manage pre-frail patients in the community without "geriatric" training."

To help participants in their learning, a number of case studies were used during the course. "We used a common scenario faced during clinical practice - an older patient with poorly managed chronic diseases in the primary care/community setting, being identified early by a primary care physician and referred for a comprehensive assessment. And subsequently, the patient continued to be managed by community nurse (medication compliance and coping), case manager (social services coordination), day care centre (physical optimisation), specialist (early diagnosis of cognitive impairment)," said Dr Cheong.

Participants who took part in the first run of the course held on 14 April 2021 found the interactive case discussions and ability to discuss with professionals from different backgrounds useful.

One of the participants, Dr Shawn Goh, Family Physician, SingHealth Polyclinics, said, "The Frailty workshop was very comprehensive and well-structured. It helped me gain a better understanding and deeper insights into managing the frail elderly. The trainers were also very knowledgeable and approachable which made the learning really engaging. I particularly enjoyed the case-based discussions with other healthcare providers from all walks of life, ranging from emergency medicine doctors to geriatric nurses as it allowed me to see things from different perspectives."

A second run of the Integrating Frailty Concept in Your Care Delivery will be conducted on 26 July 2021.