Doctors can lower hospital admission rates of older asthma patients if they diagnose asthma problems earlier and control other illnesses, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers. The study was designed to find out why older adults are hospitalized for asthma at much higher rates than younger adults.
Worse health can explain the different rates of hospitalizations.
Studies have shown that adults aged 65 and over are hospitalized at more than twice the rate of individuals 18 to 35. The question was whether older adults got worse care, had worse asthma, or more co-morbid conditions, or whether doctors were just more likely to hospitalize the elderly. They looked at co-morbid conditions, gender, race, education, asthma symptom severity, medications, health care access and satisfaction, and physician specialty. All subjects were employees and dependents of some of the largest U.S. companies and had health insurance coverage through managed care. The researchers found that medical care was actually better for older adults and that the higher rates of hospitalization were due to more severe asthma and more co-morbid illnesses.