Chest
ORIGINAL RESEARCHASTHMAAsthma in the Elderly: Mortality Rate and Associated Risk Factors for Mortality
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
Between January 1996 and July 1999, a total of 1,971 outpatients were recruited from 24 departments of geriatrics or respiratory medicine within the context of the Salute Respiratoria nell'Anziano (Sa.R.A.) [respiratory health in the elderly study]. Details on the Sa.R.A. project are available elsewhere20; the Sa.R.A. study is a multicenter Italian project investigating various aspects of chronic airway diseases in the elderly population (age ≥ 65 years) attending pulmonary or geriatric
Results
People with and without asthma were similar with respect to demographic characteristics. Physical performance was, as expected, slightly worse in the group with asthma, and in this group we also found a higher prevalence of depressed mood. No difference was found, instead, with regard to cognitive performance. Eversmokers were more prevalent in the group with asthma (56.2% vs 47.8%). We found only minimal difference between groups in the prevalence of cerebrovascular disease and diabetes, while
Discussion
This study shows that in elderly asthmatics, death from all causes was increased compared to control subjects. However, asthma per se was not recognized among factors associated with death in pooled asthma and control subjects. Furthermore, the sets of risk factors identified in asthmatics and control subjects substantially differed. Thus, clustering of selected risk factors in asthmatics rather than asthma as a respiratory disease seems relevant to explain the excess mortality rate in
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are indebted to all the investigators of the Sara Group for their contribution. A list of the investigators may be found at [email protected].
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Cited by (0)
This work was performed at Università degli studi di Palermo-DIMPEFINU, Palermo, Italy.
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.