Tag Archives: elderly

The Lack of Effect of Influenza Vaccination on the Elderly

The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published online a study of the effectiveness of influenza vaccination on the likelihood of subjects 65 and older being hospitalized or dying. The study’s objective was: “To determine the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine in reducing hospitalizations and mortality among elderly persons by using an observational research design that…


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Kidney Disease and the Elderly

I hate to write this, but it appears that the New York Times may be more up to speed than your primary care doctor or even your nephrologist when it comes to kidney disease in the elderly. For Older Adults, Questioning a Diagnosis of Chronic Kidney Disease accurately describes a problem which has not received the…


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Life Expectancy, Medicare, and Preventable Death

I’ve recently read several articles dealing with the aging of our population. They all said that retired people have to confront the problem of a longer life expectancy. They have to husband their resources to last longer than did previous generations You’ve probably seen similar material. Everybody believes that old people are living a lot…


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Hypertension in the Very Old

Virtually all physicians treat their hypertensive patients who are 80 years old or more. The evidence for the effectiveness of this treatment in very old patients has up till now been lacking. The New England Journal of Medicine has published a paper, Treatment of Hypertension in Patients 80 Years of Age or Older, that shows…


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