New research from Karolinska Institutet shows that the degree of frailty, a measure of a person’s functional level before contracting the disease, can better predict COVID-19 survival than the patient’s age. The analysis of 250 multimorbid older adults who received care for COVID-19 at the Aging Theme at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge, Sweden also shows that three out of four of these patients survived. The study has been published in the scientific journal JAMDA.

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The elderly population has an increased risk of developing severe cases of COVID-19 and dying from the disease, but individual differences are great. Sweden’s general recommendations on social distancing apply to everyone over the age of 70, regardless of one’s individual health.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital have analysed information on 250 patients who were treated for COVID-19 at the Aging Theme at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge between 1 March and 11 June this year. 76 per cent of the patients survived hospitalisation.