A/Prof Laura Tay is Head of Service, Geriatric Medicine, at Sengkang General Hospital. She is Head, SingHealth-Duke NUS Memory and Cognitive Disorder Centre, and clinical lead for the Geriatric Services Hub in the NorthEast. Her subspecialty interest is in cognitive disorders, and she has research interests in areas of cognition, frailty, sarcopenia and intrinsic capacity. She is Co-PI of the Individual Physical Proficiency Test for Seniors (IPPT-S), a community platform for the screening of frailty and physical fitness in older adults. Her research works have been published in peer reviewed journals.

Intrinsic capacity (IC) is represented by the composite of physical and mental capacities, and is integral to healthy ageing. Declining intrinsic capacity underlies the diminished homeostatic reserves that culminate in extreme vulnerability of the frail older person to adverse health outcomes. We share the findings from our ongoing community frailty screening, examining the relationship between intrinsic capacity, frailty and physical fitness in older adults. The complexity and heterogeneity of frailty will necessitate a more targeted approach towards tailoring programmes aimed at delaying or preventing prefrailty/ frailty. This can be evident by how intrinsic capacity impacts on the reversal to robustness among prefrail older adults exposed to a multi-component physical exercise and nutritional intervention programme.