IEEE J Biomed Health Inform. 2020 Jun;24(6):1557-1568. doi: 10.1109/JBHI.2020.2986918. Epub 2020 Apr 13.
The implications of frailty in older adults' health status and autonomy necessitates the understanding and effective management of this widespread condition as a priority for modern societies. Despite its importance, we still stand far from early detection, effective management and prevention of frailty. One of the most important reasons for this is the lack of sensitive instruments able to early identify frailty and pre-frailty conditions. The FrailSafe system provides a novel approach to this complex, medical, social and public health problem. It aspires to identify the most important components of frailty, construct cumulative metrics serving as biomarkers, and apply this knowledge and expertise for self-management and prevention. This paper presents a high-level overview of the FrailSafe system architecture providing details on the monitoring sensors and devices, the software front-ends for the interaction of the users with the system, as well as the back-end part including the data analysis and decision support modules. Data storage, remote processing and security issues are also discussed. The evaluation of the system by older individuals from 3 different countries highlighted the potential of frailty prediction strategies based on information and communication technology (ICT).
老年人健康状况和自主性的脆弱性意味着，作为现代社会的优先事项，必须理解和有效管理这一普遍存在的状况。尽管脆弱性很重要，但我们在早期检测、有效管理和预防脆弱性方面仍然远远落后。造成这种情况的一个最重要原因是缺乏能够早期识别脆弱性和虚弱前期状况的敏感工具。FrailSafe 系统为这一复杂的医学、社会和公共卫生问题提供了一种新的方法。它旨在确定脆弱性的最重要组成部分，构建作为生物标志物的累积指标，并应用这些知识和专业知识进行自我管理和预防。本文介绍了 FrailSafe 系统架构的高级概述，详细介绍了监测传感器和设备、用户与系统交互的软件前端，以及包括数据分析和决策支持模块在内的后端部分。还讨论了数据存储、远程处理和安全问题。来自 3 个不同国家的老年人对该系统的评估突出了基于信息和通信技术（ICT）的脆弱性预测策略的潜力。
