ABSTRACT
There is an increasing proportion of the general population surviving to old age with significant chronic disease, multi-morbidity, and disability. The prevalence of pre-frail state and frailty syndrome increases exponentially with advancing age and is associated with greater morbidity, disability, hospitalization, institutionalization, mortality, and health care resource use. Frailty represents a global problem, making early identification, evaluation, and treatment to prevent the cascade of events leading from functional decline to disability and death, one of the challenges of geriatric and general medicine. Cardiac arrhythmias are common in advancing age, chronic illness, and frailty and include a broad spectrum of rhythm and conduction abnormalities. However, no systematic studies or recommendations on the management of arrhythmias are available specifically for the elderly and frail population, and the uptake of many effective antiarrhythmic therapies in these patients remains the slowest. This European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) consensus document focuses on the biology of frailty, common comorbidities, and methods of assessing frailty, in respect to a specific issue of arrhythmias and conduction disease, provide evidence base advice on the management of arrhythmias in patients with frailty syndrome, and identifies knowledge gaps and directions for future research.
Subject(s)
Frailty , Humans , Aged , Frailty/diagnosis , Frailty/epidemiology , Frailty/therapy , Frail Elderly , Consensus , Latin America , Arrhythmias, Cardiac/diagnosis , Arrhythmias, Cardiac/epidemiology , Arrhythmias, Cardiac/therapy , Cardiac Conduction System DiseaseABSTRACT
In 2014, a joint consensus document dealing with the management of antithrombotic therapy in atrial fibrillation (AF) patients presenting with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and/or undergoing percutaneous coronary or valve interventions was published, which represented an effort of the European Society of Cardiology Working Group on Thrombosis, European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions (EAPCI), and European Association of Acute Cardiac Care (ACCA) endorsed by the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) and Asia-Pacific Heart Rhythm Society (APHRS). Since publication of this document, additional data from observational cohorts, randomized controlled trials, and percutaneous interventions as well as new guidelines have been published. Moreover, new drugs and devices/interventions are also available, with an increasing evidence base. The approach to managing AF has also evolved towards a more integrated or holistic approach. In recognizing these advances since the last consensus document, EHRA, WG Thrombosis, EAPCI, and ACCA, with additional contributions from HRS, APHRS, Latin America Heart Rhythm Society (LAHRS), and Cardiac Arrhythmia Society of Southern Africa (CASSA), proposed a focused update, to include the new data, with the remit of comprehensively reviewing the available evidence and publishing a focused update consensus document on the management of antithrombotic therapy in AF patients presenting with ACS and/or undergoing percutaneous coronary or valve interventions, and providing up-to-date consensus recommendations for use in clinical practice.
