Frailty and Old Age
A major problem confronting American society is our aging population with its attendant issues of frailty and physical and mental decline. Our secular zeitgeist downplays most references to our ultimate, final, and unavoidable mortality. Yet many of us, as we approach our final end, begin to slow down, lose strength, have diminished mental acuity, and experience frailty. “Life is nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes, Part III). This is the famous quotation of Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth-century, English philosopher. Being, by nature, optimistic, we tend to ignore Hobbes’s observation on the nature of life, and this is easy to do when we are relatively young. Eventually we will become ill or frail and will observe others as they become sick and approach death. Frailty and old age will confront us all, unless we die at a young age without becoming ill. This brief essay is an inquiry into human life and the troubling aspects of old age including frailty and finally death. Death, although inevitable, need not be a time of despair, but if we appreciate the God-given purpose of our life, a time of hope. Humans are possessed of many organ systems all of which usually function harmoniously. When any one malfunctions the others can often take up the slack until the diseased one recovers. As we age other systems malfunction before the previously impaired ones can heal. The gradual cumulative breakdown leads to frailty. Frailty is the name commonly given to the condition of becoming weak and delicate. Frailty afflicts elderly patients in decline as they advance in age. The elderly can broadly be defined as individuals sixty-five years or older (Miller 2003, 3–15). The outset of frailty may occur earlier or be delayed until later, say to seventy years, or even hundred, depending on the medical condition of the individual. Oftentimes, frailty may be the result of one or more other systemic or acquired conditions such as diabetes, cardiac failure, or injuries such as war-related disabilities. Frailty will confront almost everyone. Despite media and literature reports, some even from medical sources, announcing approaching scientific breakthroughs that will prevent or reverse aging and suggesting a limitless future, aging is inevitable. Replacement therapies (islet cell transplants, titanium joint replacement, and even heart transplants) are examples of breakthroughs. Cardiac extenders, pacemakers, and ventricular assist devices are even more contemporary examples, but they all also have half-lives and eventually will no longer function and cannot prevent other biologic The Linacre Quarterly 83 (2) 2016, 131–133