La fragilità in una prospettiva di Sanità Pubblica

[Autom. eng. transl.] The great challenge that frailty poses to us is the difficulty in relating it to a single domain because it connects the biological and subjective dimensions of loss of resistance and ability to adapt to stressful events, to changes, because it is not peculiar to a single range of age, even if strongly influenced by advanced age, because it is not equivalent to chronicity, political science and does not mean disability or non-self-sufficiency, of which it is however a precursor. Therefore a multifactorial condition in which many health determinants strongly intervene which, if identified early, treated and managed, can, in some cases, regress and/or slow down its course. For these reasons, the SItI Primary Health Care Working Group decided, after drafting the position paper Fragility in a Public Health perspective: principles and tools for a prevention-oriented "life course" approach, to give voice, in a volume, to all professionals involved and citizens on ways to define and recognize frailty according to a multidimensional approach that can become a guide, reflection and training on frailty on a broad spectrum. In particular, the editorial project is aimed at health operators to guide them, through the acquisition of specific skills, in the activities of prevention, monitoring, coordination and integration of services that address this large segment of the population. The diversified positions of the authors have been deliberately maintained to offer, in a single collection, different and in any case evolving visions among professionals and researchers with varied backgrounds and experiences to underline the need for an interdisciplinary approach to a topic that reaches services and activities ranging from the territorial level to the specialist and "super-specialist" level, but above all involving the whole community in a network of formal and informal relationships capable of supporting the effort of the health service in terms of ever more substantial resources to be committed.