Tuuponen T, Keistinen T, Kivelä S L
Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Päivärinne Hospital, Jokirinne, Finland.
Age Ageing. 1993 Mar;22(2):96-102. doi: 10.1093/ageing/22.2.97.
The aim of this investigation was to examine the use of hospital services, on account of asthma, among adults aged 65 and over in 1972-86. According to the discharge records maintained by the National Board of Health, asthma caused a total of 710,187 hospitalization days and 62,342 periods of hospital treatment among elderly people during the 15 years concerned. The annual number of hospitalization days per 100,000 persons, standardized for age and sex, was 8438 and that of treatment periods 731. The figures were higher in the case of patients under 75 years than with older age groups, but it was in the oldest age groups that the numbers of treatment periods increased most. The mean duration of a treatment period decreased from 15.4 days to 9.6 days in the course of the 15 years, but became longer with increasing age. The 15 years of consistently recorded data on asthma patients point to an increase in the use of hospital services by elderly people and suggest that the diagnosis and treatment of asthma in this sector of the population will pose a challenge for the health service in the future.
本调查旨在研究1972年至1986年间65岁及以上成年人因哮喘而使用医院服务的情况。根据国家卫生局保存的出院记录，在相关的15年中，哮喘导致老年人总共住院710,187天，接受62,342次住院治疗。按年龄和性别标准化后，每10万人每年的住院天数为8438天，治疗次数为731次。75岁以下患者的这些数字高于老年组，但治疗次数增加最多的是最年长的年龄组。在这15年中，一个治疗期的平均时长从15.4天降至9.6天，但随着年龄增长而变长。这15年来对哮喘患者持续记录的数据表明老年人使用医院服务的情况有所增加，并表明在这部分人群中哮喘的诊断和治疗未来将给医疗服务带来挑战。
