Fried Frailty Phenotype
The FRIED FRAILTY PHENOTYPE (Fried and colleagues 2001, Cardiovascular Health Study) counts FIVE criteria.
Open the calculator → Runs in your browser. Data leaves only if you deliberately send a problem report from the interactive tool.
Example
- Unintentional weight loss
- Yes
- Exhaustion
- Yes
- Weakness
- Yes
- Slowness
- No
- Low physical activity
- No
Result: Frail
The tool opens with these values already filled in. Replace them with your own.
What the result means
- 0
- Robust.
- 1 to 2
- Pre-frail - its own category, not "nearly frail".
- 3 to 5
- Frail.
- Grip, men
- RISES WITH BMI: up to 24 at or below 29 kg; 24.1-26 and 26.1-28 both at or below 30 kg; above 28 at or below 32 kg. Four bands, only three values.
- Grip, women
- Up to 23 at or below 17 kg; 23.1-26 at or below 17.3 kg; 26.1-29 at or below 18 kg; above 29 at or below 21 kg.
- Why it rises
- Grip scales with body mass, so a heavier person must squeeze harder to avoid being called weak. A fixed threshold would misread both ends.
- Slowness
- A TIME over 15 feet, not a speed: 7 seconds or more if shorter, 6 or more if taller. Sex enters ONLY through the height threshold - 173 cm men, 159 cm women.
- Weight loss
- TWO alternatives, either satisfies: more than 10 pounds unintentionally in the last year, or a measured loss of 5% or more.
- Activity
- Lowest quintile by sex. The 383 and 270 kcal/week figures are that quintile in the derivation cohort - cohort-specific, not universal.
- Equipment
- Three of five criteria need a dynamometer, a timed walk or the Minnesota questionnaire. Not a bedside checklist - which is why the simplified derivatives exist.
- Scope
- Classifies a phenotype. Does not diagnose disease, does not measure disability or comorbidity, does not clear anyone for an operation, does not set a care plan.
What you enter
- Unintentional weight loss - more than 10 pounds in the last year, OR a measured loss of 5% or more of the previous year weight
- Exhaustion - a positive answer to either CES-D statement: "I felt that everything I did was an effort" or "I could not get going", in the last week
- Weakness - grip strength at or below the cut-point for the patient sex and BMI
- Slowness - time to walk 15 feet at or above the cut-point for the patient sex and height
- Low physical activity - lowest quintile of weekly kilocalories by sex on the Minnesota Leisure Time Activity Questionnaire
How this is calculated
- Criteria
- Five: unintentional weight loss, exhaustion, weakness, slowness, low physical activity.
Fried LP, Tangen CM, Walston J, et al. Frailty in older adults: evidence for a phenotype. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2001;56(3):M146-M156. Read the source ↗
A reference and educational tool. Not medical, legal, or financial advice, and not a substitute for clinician judgment.