Does Ageism Affect the Management of Ischaemic Heart Disease?

Abstract

The current findings from a single hospital are comparable with the results from a broader study of equity of access by age to cardiological interventions in another district hospital in the same region. Although only two hospitals were analysed, the similarity of findings enhances the generalisability of the results presented here. It appears that age per se causes older cardiac hospital patients to be treated differently.

Delay in Recognition of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

“…Studies in other disease states indicate that patient characteristics such as age, sex, and race can result in delays in diagnosis and treatment initiation. [16][17][18][19] Whether similar characteristics exist among patients with PAH has not been examined. Such information is crucial if interventions to promote earlier disease recognition and treatment are to be successfully implemented in the PAH population.…”

Non-clinical influences on clinical decision-making: a major challenge to evidence-based practice

“…Compared with younger patients, older patients receive delayed and fewer diagnostic interventions, 54 fewer preventive drugs, 55 fewer prescriptions that are known to be effective cardiac treatments, 56 and have more limited access to specialist care facilities. 57 There is a direct influence of patient's age on decision-making about angina investigation and treatment.…”

Researching Ageism in Health-Care and Long Term Care

“…The majority of studies concern themselves with identifying forms of discrimination in diagnosis , Rudd et al 2007, Bond et al 2003, discrimination in treatment and management (Koch and Webb 1996;Chambaere et al 2012;Pedersen and Mehlsen 2011;Grant et al 2000;Gnavi et al 2007;Austin et al 2013), discrimination in access to research and clinical trials (Cruz-Jentoft et al 2013;Briggs et al 2012) and differences in survival rates (Peake et al 2003;Grant et al 2000). The cognitive component, mainly addressed in qualitative studies, is generally reflected in research on the stereotypes and assumption about older patients not belonging in specific care institutions (Parke and Chappell 2010), about symptoms that are "normal" at more advanced ages (Iliffe et al 2005;Makris et al 2015) and about expected responses to treatment (Skirbekk and Nortvedt 2014).…”

“…Similarly, in the health care setting, studies of ageism are also based on registry data (Cruz-Jentoft et al 2013), on analysis of case documentation and files (Bond et al 2003;Peake et al 2003), on auditing of clinical research proposals (Briggs et al 2012), on the analysis of death certificates (Chambaere et al 2013) and of hospital and other regional medical databases (Gnavi et al 2007;Grant et al 2000;Rudd et al 2007). Due to the lack of coordinated data collection efforts, among other constraints, such studies are rendered virtually impossible and in fact, lack completely, from the empirical literature on ageism in long-term care.…”