FIGURE 1.

Pathway to frailty from aging, hypertension, heart failure, and other diseases. Aging, hypertension, heart failure, and other comorbidities may have an interaction which promotes development of other diseases in older people. For example, hypertension associated oxidative stress and Angiotensin II signaling appear to play an important role in the development of heart failure in the elderly. These, together with inflammatory response, promote collagen deposition. In this context, cardiomyocyte loss due to apoptosis and necrosis may also occur. Some of these pathophysiological pathways may also act at vascular level leading to various macro‐ and micro‐vascular complications. The aforesaid shared factors, and their consequences, may lead to geriatric syndromes such as cognitive and functional decline, falls, delirium, and urinary incontinence. All these may lead to frailty, with feedback mechanisms enhancing risk factors and geriatric syndromes. Such pathways may result in increased risk of adverse health outcomes