Management Considerations for the Older Adult With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

As the prevalence of older adults with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is rising, understanding the unique challenges in both diagnosis and management is becoming increasingly important. Knowledge of phenotypic differences as well as overlapping symptoms with other medical conditions is critical to obtaining a timely diagnosis of IBD in older adults. Although older adults with IBD are at higher risk for adverse events compared with younger adults with IBD, recent data have suggested that ongoing disease activity may be a significant driver of adverse clinical outcomes rather than use of current treatment modalities. Ultimately, earlier and effective treatments can improve outcomes and quality of life for older adults with IBD. However, to help improve medical decision-making, clinicians must move away from the use of chronological age alone and begin to integrate measures of biological age, such as frailty and sarcopenia, into risk stratification tools. This article reviews the management considerations for older adults with IBD and provides the rationale for incorporating measures of biological age into current practice.