Frailty concept in Africa neurosurgical practice: a prospective review

Abstract

Neurosurgical management of older patients is very complex and delicate; efforts are being made in identifying groups of older patients at risk of poor surgical outcomes before the surgery, making frailty an important concept in risk Identification and postoperative outcome assessment of older patients in the ever-changing neurosurgical world. It's of great importance for the concept of frailty to be adopted in Africa's neurosurgical practice in other to optimize the outcomes and improve the efficiency of neurosurgery in the older patients whose population is expanding, forming a great quota of people using neurosurgical services in Africa. This article looks into the importance and challenges of frailty studies in African neurosurgical practice which mainly are the longer length of time in carrying out such studies; reduces manpower, lack of availability of specialized equipment in standardizing the assessment, and others; makes recommendations on ways to ease its adoption such as funding frailty research and creation of population-specific frailty assessment tools among others.