![]() ![]() ![]() One highly prevalent condition in the elderly causing decreased quality of life and life expectancy is anemia. It is therefore imperative that we change the way we think and feel towards the aging population, and to act sooner than later. Although, if these extra years are eclipsed by declines in physical and mental health, the implications for society and the future ageing population are negative. If people were to experience a few extra years in good health, their ability to do what they enjoy and perform at these tasks will be seldom different to that of a younger person. This is especially true for mild to moderate disability, where there has been little change over the past 30 years. However, there is negligible evidence suggesting that older people today are experiencing better health in their later years than in the past. In conjunction with population aging, fertility rates of the western world have drastically decreased and this further skews society to an older distribution. Additionally, the share of those aged 80 or older is projected to increase from 5.9 to 14.6% between 20. This proportion increased to 20.78% by 2020 and is expected to continue rising in the coming decades. In 2010, the elderly constituted 17.66% of the population in the European Union. Traditionally, the “elderly” have been defined as persons of biological age of 65 years or greater, with “early elderly” going through to 74 years old, and “late elderly” including those older than 75 years of age. Main causes of anemia in the elderly include nutritional deficiencies, chronic diseases, tumors, and certain hematological malignancies such as chronic lymphocytic leukemia, multiple myeloma, myelodysplastic syndrome. Sudden blood loss due to an accident is less well tolerated than the same degree of anemia due to B12 deficiency. Severity of anemia depends not only the underlying cause, degree of anemia, co-morbidities and frailty of the patients, but also the speed of its development. Treatment always depends on clinical findings: the more severe the symptoms, the more important to treat them. The frequent presence of heart failure and also impaired cerebrovascular circulation makes more difficult to tolerate anemia in older age.Īnemia is a symptom, finding and treating the underlying cause is also important. That means that there is a decreased reserve capacity to react to different stress factors including anemia. Frailty is also frequent in geriatric patients. Anemia per se is an independent factor of mortality in older patients regardless its cause. Approximately 10 percent of the elderly suffers from anemia. Anemia is a common finding in the elderly. ![]()
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