Assessment of the Frail Patient With End-Stage Liver Disease: A Practical Overview of Sarcopenia, Physical Function, and Disability

Felicity R Williams, Don Milliken, Jennifer C Lai, Matthew J Armstrong

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

272 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Frailty has emerged as a powerful predictor of clinical outcomes (e.g., decompensation, hospitalization, mortality) in patients with end-stage liver disease (ESLD). It is therefore of paramount importance that all patients with ESLD undergo an assessment of frailty, to support life and death decision making (i.e., candidacy for critical care, transplantation) and aid with prioritization of evolving prehabilitation services (i.e., nutrition, physiotherapy, psychotherapy). This article aims to provide a practical overview of the recent advances in the clinical, radiological, and remote assessment tools of the frail patient with ESLD. Historically, clinicians have incorporated an assessment of frailty using the "end-of-the-bed test" or "eyeball test" into their clinical decision making. However, over the last decade, numerous nonspecific and specific tools have emerged. The current evidence supports the use of a combination of simple, user-friendly, objective measures to first identify frailty in ESLD (notably Clinical Frailty Scale, Liver Frailty Index), followed by a combination of serial tools to assess specifically sarcopenia (i.e., muscle ultrasound), physical function (i.e., chair stands, hand grip strength), functional capacity (i.e., 6-minute walk test), and physical disability (i.e., activities of daily living).

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)923-937
Number of pages15
JournalHepatology Communications
Volume5
Issue number6
Early online date26 Feb 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2021

Bibliographical note

© 2021 The Authors. Hepatology Communications published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Hepatology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Assessment of the Frail Patient With End-Stage Liver Disease: A Practical Overview of Sarcopenia, Physical Function, and Disability'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this