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More Elderly
Americans are living with Heart Failure
Newswise — The number of elderly individuals
newly diagnosed with heart failure has
declined during the past ten years, but the
number of those living with the condition
has increased, according to a report in the
February 25 issue of Archives of Internal
Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
“Heart failure affects nearly 5 million
people in the United States, and more than
300,000 die each year as a result of the
disease.
"Heart
failure is primarily a disease of elderly
persons and, consequently, places a
significant and growing economic burden on
the Medicare program,” according to
background information in the article.
The number of people age 65 or older
hospitalized for heart failure from 1984 to
2002 rose by more than 30 percent.
“Estimates
of the incidence [rate of new cases] and
prevalence [percentage of the population
affected] of heart failure in elderly
persons translate directly into projections
of resource use for the Medicare program, so
accurate estimates are essential.”
Lesley H. Curtis, Ph.D., of the Duke
University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C.,
and colleagues analyzed information obtained
from the files of 622,789 Medicare patients
age 65 or older who were diagnosed with
heart failure between 1994 and 2003.
The rate of new heart failure occurrences
and the number of people living with heart
failure were measured.
The yearly occurrence of heart failure
decreased from 32 per 1,000 person-years
(years of observation time during which each
person is at risk to develop the disease) in
1994 to 29 per 1,000 person-years in 2003.
A sharper decline was seen in Medicare
patients age 80 to 84 (from 57.5 to 48.4 per
1,000 person-years), while a slight increase
was seen in those age 65 to 69 (from 17.5 to
19.3 per 1,000 person-years).
The number of patients living with the
condition increased steadily from about
140,000 to approximately 200,000 with more
men living with the disease than women each
year.
“The proportion of beneficiaries with a
heart failure diagnosis grew from 90 per
1,000 in 1994 to 120 per 1,000 in 2000, and
remained at about 120 per 1,000 through
2003,” the authors write.
“Although the incidence of heart failure has
declined somewhat during the past decade,
modest survival gains have resulted in an
increase in the number of patients living
with heart failure,” the authors conclude.
“Identifying optimal strategies for the
treatment and management of heart failure
will become increasingly important as the
size of the Medicare population grows.”
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