ArticleAge and ageing2025
Opportunistic screening for atrial fibrillation among frail older patients, little effort for a high diagnostic yield. Outcomes of the Dutch-GERAF study.
Article in Age and ageing, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter in China: trends and projections to 2050 from GBD 2023.Internal and emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Redirection of Urgent Geriatric Care: Diagnostics and Treatment Parallel to the Emergency Department.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Polypharmacy and cardiovascular co-morbidity as key contributors to frailty in geriatric patients with AF - insights of the Dutch-GERAF cohort study.BMC geriatrics · 2026Observational
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11 authors.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimsFrailty increases the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) and its complications. This study investigated the feasibility and diagnostic yield of an eHealth screening for the detection of new AF, in frail older patients.
methodsPatients referred to the Geriatric Medicine outpatient clinics were eligible. A Frailty Index (FI) was calculated. Patients were screened for AF with electrocardiograms (ECGs) at baseline and a smartphone photoplethysmography (PPG) application, during 6 months.
resultsNine hundred fifty-two patients (median age 79 years) were included, mean FI of 0.16, 311 were frail (33%) and 751 had sinus rhythm (79%) at baseline. Six hundred forty-one patients (85%) performed PPG recordings (median 2), 295 (39%) at least 3 recordings. Twenty (2.7%) new cases of AF were found, 10 at baseline and 10 during follow-up. Among 16 (2%) patients, additional irregular PPG recordings were acquired, but no confirmatory ECG took place.
conclusionThe screening strategy proved feasible in very old and frail patients. A diagnostic yield of 2.7% was found by ECG, and an additional 0.9% of new AF cases were suspected on PPG recordings. The non-binding approach of the strategy might be disadvantageous for the patient category. Future PPG AF screening programmes for very old and frail patients should strictly organise their means of AF confirmation.
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