Constructions of frailty in the English language, care practice and the lived experience

The way frailty is conceptualised and interpreted has profound implications for social responses, care practice and the personal experience of care. This paper begins with an exegesis of the concept of frailty, and then examines the dominant notions of frailty, including how ‘frailty’ operates as a ‘dividing-practice’ through the classification of those eligible for care. The definitions and uses of ‘frailty’ in three discursive locations are …