Worldwide population ageing is partly due to advanced standard of care, leading to increased incidence and prevalence of geriatric syndromes such as frailty and disability. Hence, the age at the onset of acute coronary syndromes (ACS) keeps growing as well. Moreover, ageing is a risk factor for both frailty and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Frailty and CVD in the elderly share pathophysiological mechanisms and associated conditions, such as malnutrition, sarcopenia, anemia, polypharmacy and both increased bleeding/thrombotic risk, leading to a negative impact on outcomes. In geriatric populations ACS is associated with an increased frailty degree that has a negative effect on re-hospitalization and mortality outcomes. Frail elderly patients are increasingly referred to cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs after ACS; however, plans of care must be tailored on individual’s clinical complexity in terms of functional capacity, nutritional status and comorbidities, cognitive status, socio-economic support. Completing rehabilitative intervention with a reduced frailty degree, disability prevention, improvement in functional state and quality of life and reduction of re-hospitalization are the goals of CR program. Tools for detecting frailty and guidelines for management of frail elderly patients post-ACS are still debated. This review focused on the need of an early identification of frail patients in elderly with ACS and at elaborating personalized plans of care and secondary prevention in CR setting.

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Frailty is an age-related decline in physical, socio-psychological and cognitive function that results in extreme vulnerability to stressors. Therefore, this study aimed to elucidate which tests have to be selected to detect frailty in a comprehensive and feasible manner in cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients based on multivariate regression and sensitivity/specificity analyses. Patients (n = 133, mean age 78 ± 7 years) hospitalised for coronary revascularisation or heart failure (HF) were examined using the Fried and Vigorito criteria, together with some additional measurements. Moreover, to examine the association of frailty with 6-month clinical outcomes, hospitalisations and mortality up to 6 months after the initial hospital admission were examined. Some level of frailty was detected in 44% of the patients according to the Vigorito criteria and in 65% of the patients according to the Fried criteria. Frailty could best be detected by a score based on: sex, Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), Katz scale, timed up-and-go test (TUG), handgrip strength, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) and total number of medications. Frailty and specific markers of frailty were significantly associated with mortality and six-month hospitalisations. We thus can conclude that, in patients with CVD, sex, MNA, Katz scale, TUG, handgrip strength, MMSE, GDS-15 and total number of medications play a key role in detecting frailty, assessed by a new time- and cost-efficient test battery.