The right heart care improves the survival and quality of life of the elderly. The paradox, however, is that they decrease to almost halve as we move forward with age. So much so that four over 85 year olds out of ten with cardiovascular problems are cut off from the most advanced therapies, without valid reasons. This is the complaint, based on data from patient registries, which comes from the experts gathered at the Congress of Geriatric Cardiology, co-organized in Rome by the Menarini International Foundation.
Every year in Italy 150 thousand over 65 are affected by a heart attack or stroke and 200 thousand fall ill with heart failure. "Cardiovascular diseases concern 60% of the over 65s, with a peak of 80% in the over-85s, who reach 2.2 million in Italy", explains Alessandro Boccanelli, president of the Italian Society of Geriatric Cardiology (SICGe). "However - he adds - with increasing age, prescriptions of drugs and controls are reduced, so much so that in the over 85 we undergo on average up to 40% of cases, while under 70 years of age patients only 15% are not properly treated ". To give examples, stresses Niccolò Marchionni, SICGe vice president, "12% of patients under 70 hypertensive do not receive antihypertensives but the percentage rises to 30-40% in over 85. After a heart attack, statins are not prescribed to 12% of under 70, while the percentage rises to 50% among the over 85 ". This stems from the mistaken belief that a very old person does not benefit significantly from therapies. "We continue to think - continues Marchionni - that it is not 'convenient', from a clinical and economic point of view, to treat a patient well as he gets older".
Instead the opposite is true. "Patients treated poorly - Boccanelli concludes - are hospitalized more often than others so, in the long run, we spend much more to remedy inadequate therapies and diagnoses". Hence the appeal to "put any type of 'ageism' at the door, that is, any form of discrimination against the elderly and their health needs".
