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[COPD in elderly patients]
1Service de Pneumologie et Réanimation Respiratoire, Hôpital du Bocage, Dijon, France. louis-jeannin@wanadoo.fr
Introduction:
Patients with COPD are growing in number and are getting older, with 75% of deaths occurring after the age of 75; the proportion of women is increasing.
State Of The Art:
There are few data regarding COPD in the elderly. The related medical and social demands are significant and rise as age and respiratory disability increase. Admission rates to hospital are increasing and, despite the development of services as alternatives to hospital admission, the portion of healthcare resources taken up by elderly COPD patients continues to rise.
Perspectives:
Costly therapeutic interventions for COPD should only be employed if they improve the patient's health related quality of life, which is hard to evaluate and correlates poorly with lung function parameters. Although depression is common and more often found in this condition than in others, it cannot be attributed purely to the effects of COPD.
Conclusion:
Preventive measures and new strategies towards more efficient care of elderly patients with COPD must be developed to improve quality of life and to reduce health care costs.