Increase in infectious disease hospitalization among older adults

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A comparison shows that there has been a 13 per cent increase in hospital admission for infectious disease in the last decade.
Adults aged 65 or more account for a disproportionate number of patients with infectious disease, maybe because the immune system weakens with age. A team for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has been looking at trends in hospitalization for older adults because of infection and find that admissions have gone up from 1980 to 1994. During this time, the corresponding rates for younger adults decreased.

Further analysis shows that from 1990 to 2002 there were 21.4 million hospitalizations for infection among older adults, of which nearly half had infection as a primary diagnosis. The rate increased by 13 per cent from 2000 to 2002 compared to 1990-1992. Nearly half of these hospitalizations were for lower respiratory tract infection. While the rate of hospitalization for these infections and for urinary tract and kidney infections has not gone up, the rate of septicemia - bloodstream infection - has. Also on the increase are infections of the heart and infections from prosthetic devices and post-operative infection. The latter are the areas that need targeting if the hospital admission rates among older adults are to be stabilized.

Source
Archives of Internal Medicine 28th November 2005 Volume 165 pages 2514-2520