Could you be denied surgery with this new test?
A new ‘Frailty Index’ is being developed to assess whether patients qualify for surgery in order to help hospitals minimise ‘futile’ surgeries.
The Frailty Index is currently being developed by Melbourne hospitals and will measure how well a person will recover from surgery.
The Index is targeted to assess whether an older patient will survive surgery and how long they’ll live after an operation.
Anaesthetist and intensive care specialist Dr Jai Darvall from Royal Melbourne Hospital will assess 250 patients before and after surgery to observe the factors that influence accurately providing an assessment of a person’s suitability for surgery.
The test follows the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) urging doctors and families to be open about the benefits of proposed surgery.
The Frailty Index will indicate who may be beyond help and who could benefit.
“You could have a really fit 80-year-old who is running marathons who poses less of a surgical risk than a 60-year-old frail person,” said Dr Darvall.
“As you get older you accumulate deficits and that might be some comorbidities (such as) heart disease, lung disease, it might be problems with hearing or vision, problems with mobility, a person’s gait or arthritis, or not being able to do the stuff they used to.”
“One by one, these things start to mount up and eventually they reach a threshold where you say a person is frail," Dr Darvall added.
“It means that recovery is much harder and people are more likely to go on to poorer recovery, perhaps not getting back home or not getting back to functional independence,” Dr Darvall concluded.
“In the end what we are aiming for with anaesthesia and surgery is to improve somebody’s quality of life — it is not just about quantity, it is about quality,” said ANZCA president Professor David Scott. “And that means taking on board people’s own views and expectations and what they want to achieve."
Professor Scott added, “We are fixated on this idea that if there is a small chance of surviving then it is a success. But that may not be the case. It could be three months relatively pain free, highly-mobile quality of life compared to six months following a major operation with a long drawn out recovery, most likely some complications, and actually never getting back to that good quality life you expected.”
What do you think of this Frailty Index? Let us know in the comments below.