Demographic ageing is one of the most serious challenges that Europe is currently facing. Older people are at greatest risk of becoming frail and developing disability. This poses crucial challenges to the well-being of individuals and to the health care systems.
However, frailty is not an inevitable consequence of ageing and, thus, may be prevented and treated to foster a longer and healthier life. To do so, it is crucial to develop evidence-based support that makes frailty entering the top of the public health agenda in Europe.
The concern for such situation motivated the European Commission, the Parliament and many of the Member States (MSs) to co-fund, through the Third European Health Programme of the European Union (EU) 2014- 2020, the first Joint Action (JA) on the prevention of frailty, JAHEE , which brings together 33 partners from 22 MSs for 3 years.
The JAHEE JA’s State of the Art report (SoAR) is the first concrete step towards a common approach to tackle frailty at the European level. It offers an overview of evidence on what really works in terms of frailty prevention and management, based on four main sources: peer-reviewed articles, grey documents, good practices identified at European level and EU funded projects. SoAR results are presented as answers to 13 key questions.