Editorial: Innovations and Strategies for Comprehensive Frailty Management in Older People

Jie Li^1*Chengchao Zhou²Finbarr Martin³Miao Li¹

• ¹Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
• ²Shandong University, Jinan, China
• ³King's College London, London, United Kingdom

Accurate, standardized assessment is the cornerstone of effective frailty management. This research topic has achieved significant progress in the innovation, validation, and clinical translation of frailty measurement tools. A notable contribution is the development and validation of the Functional Collectively, these studies emphasize that effective interventions must be tailored to frailty severity, comorbidities, and functional status. Translating frailty research into clinical practice requires systematic integration across settings, and disciplines. Prehospital trauma triage represents a critical gap in frailty care. Harthi et al.'s two narrative reviews emphasize that older adults face disproportionately high rates of under-triage or over-triage due to age-related physiological changes, frailty, and polypharmacy, compounded by triage tools designed for younger populations. They proposed that incorporating frailty assessments, refining age-specific triage criteria, and enhancing paramedic education can improve the precision of prehospital trauma triage for older adults.Multidisciplinary collaboration is emphasized across studies. Perioperative care requires coordination between surgeons, anesthesiologists, and geriatricians to optimize frailty and nutrition. Community care integrates primary care providers, social workers, and physical therapists to deliver exercise, social support, and nutritional interventions. Prehospital care relies on paramedics trained in geriatric trauma assessment.This holistic approach ensures that biological, psychological, and social needs of frail older adults are addressed across care settings. Although this research topic has advanced the field of frailty management, several key gaps remain, pointing the way for future research. First, newly developed assessment tools require further validation and implementation across diverse healthcare settings and cultures to ensure generalizability. Second, it is crucial to conduct long-term follow-up on the intervention measures (especially mind-body training and nutritional optimization), which helps to evaluate their sustained efficacy in delaying the progression of frailty. Third, digital health technologies such as wearable devices for real-time frailty monitoring can be further personalized to enhance assessment accessibility and intervention adherence, but attention must be paid to addressing literacy, and privacy concerns. Fourth, solving health inequalities is crucial because older adults in rural areas face barriers to accessing multidisciplinary frailty care. Finally, more research is needed on the interaction between frailty and multiple comorbidities to develop personalized interventions for individuals at high risk of frailty.This research topic provides a comprehensive overview of the evolving science of frailty, deepening our understanding of its complex mechanisms, refining assessment and prediction tools, proposing innovative personalized intervention strategies, and clarifying pathways for multidisciplinary collaboration. In the face of accelerating global aging, translating these insights into clinical practice and health policy is now imperative.We extend our deepest gratitude to all authors, reviewers, and contributors. We remain committed to fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to address the evolving challenges of frailty in older adults and anticipate sustained breakthroughs in comprehensive frailty management in the coming years.