There is an increasing proportion of the general population surviving to old age with significant chronic disease, multi-morbidity, and disability. The prevalence of pre-frail state and frailty syndrome increases exponentially with advancing age and is associated with greater morbidity, disability, hospitalization, institutionalization, mortality, and health care resource use. Frailty represents a global problem, making early identification, evaluation, and treatment to prevent the cascade of events leading from functional decline to disability and death, one of the challenges of geriatric and general medicine. Cardiac arrhythmias are common in advancing age, chronic illness, and frailty and include a broad spectrum of rhythm and conduction abnormalities. However, no systematic studies or recommendations on the management of arrhythmias are available specifically for the elderly and frail population, and the uptake of many effective antiarrhythmic therapies in these patients remains the slowest. This European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) consensus document focuses on the biology of frailty, common comorbidities, and methods of assessing frailty, in respect to a specific issue of arrhythmias and conduction disease, provide evidence base advice on the management of arrhythmias in patients with frailty syndrome, and identifies knowledge gaps and directions for future research.

Clinical symptoms of heart failure in older patients can be similar to those of other diseases in geriatrics. Therefore, the diagnosis should be confirmed by echocardiography. The treatment of older patients with heart failure with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (HFrEF) should be carried out in accordance with the guidelines with regular control of volume status, renal function and serum electrolytes. Due to the lack of effective treatment of heart failure with preserved ejection faction (HFpEF) blood pressure control as a measure of prevention is important. Patients can benefit from the new treatment options for secondary mitral regurgitation if the patient selection is correct. For older and frail patients a special management would be desirable, with the aim of reducing functional loss through hospitalization. In order to reduce the rehospitalization rate of older patients, it is necessary to improve the collaboration between outpatient and inpatient care providers and nursing personnel should be better qualified.