Abstract
Key points
- Asthma in the elderly can be difficult to identify due to modifications of its clinical features and functional characteristics.
- Several comorbidities are associated with asthma in the elderly, and this association differs from that observed in younger patients.
- In clinical practice, physicians should treat comorbidities that are correlated with asthma (i.e. rhinitis or gastro-oesophageal reflux), assess comorbidities that may influence asthma outcomes (i.e. depression or cognitive impairment) and try to prevent comorbidities related to ‘drug-associated side-effects (i.e. cataracts, arrhythmias or osteoporosis).
- “Geriatric asthma” should be the preferred term because it implies the comprehensive and multidimensional approach to the disease in the older populations, whereas “asthma in the elderly” is only descriptive of the occurrence of the disease in this age range.