Asthma or COPD? An inwestigation into the symptom patterns of asthma may highlight the need for more rigorous diagnostic procedures in elderly patients

To investigate the symptom patterns of elderly patients registered as active asthmatics. An observational study using a database of 393 practices from throughout the United Kingdom. Participating practices provided health-service resource-use and symptom data for 30 randomly selected asthma patients...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Primary care respiratory journal 2001-12, Vol.10 (4), p.99-102
Main Authors: Hoskins, Gaylor, McCowan, Colin, Thomas, Giles E, Neville, Ronald G, Clark, Roland A, Smith, Barbara
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:To investigate the symptom patterns of elderly patients registered as active asthmatics. An observational study using a database of 393 practices from throughout the United Kingdom. Participating practices provided health-service resource-use and symptom data for 30 randomly selected asthma patients. 8,244 adults, (16+ years), were stratified into three age groups, 4315(52%) aged 16-44, 2339(28%) 45-64, and 1590(19%) 65+. Comparisons were made for management and outcome measures (attack incidence, symptoms, health service resource use, drug therapies) between the groups. Patients over 64 years old experienced more morning and exercise symptoms(p
ISSN:1475-1534
1471-4418
1475-1534
DOI:10.1038/pcrj.2001.38