Sarcopenia in daily practice: assessment and management

Background: Sarcopenia is increasingly recognized as a correlate of ageing and is associated with increased
likelihood of adverse outcomes including falls, fractures, frailty and mortality. Several tools have been recommended
to assess muscle mass, muscle strength and physical performance in clinical trials. Whilst these tools have proven to
be accurate and reliable in investigational settings, many are not easily applied to daily practice.
Methods: This paper is based on literature reviews performed by members of the European Society for Clinical and
Economic Aspects of Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis (ESCEO) working group on frailty and sarcopenia. Face-to-face
meetings were afterwards organized for the whole group to make amendments and discuss further recommendations.
Results: This paper proposes some user-friendly and inexpensive methods that can be used to assess sarcopenia in
real-life settings. Healthcare providers, particularly in primary care, should consider an assessment of sarcopenia in
individuals at increased risk; suggested tools for assessing risk include the Red Flag Method, the SARC-F questionnaire,
the SMI method or different prediction equations. Management of sarcopenia should primarily be patient centered
and involve the combination of both resistance and endurance based activity programmes with or without
dietary interventions. Development of a number of pharmacological interventions is also in progress.
Conclusions: Assessment of sarcopenia in individuals with risk factors, symptoms and/or conditions exposing
them to the risk of disability will become particularly important in the near future.