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Hospitalization Trends for Pneumonia Among Older Persons
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To the Editor: In their study of US trends in hospitalization for pneumonia, Dr Fry and colleagues1 report increasing rates among persons aged 64 to 84 years that they attribute to the increasing prevalence of comorbidities, suggesting that strategies to reduce preventable comorbid conditions and improve vaccination efforts will help prevent hospitalizations for pneumonia.
Although the rates of hospitalizations for adults aged 85 years or older were consistently high, they remained stable during the period examined (1988-2002). To explain this difference compared with patients who were younger than 85 years, the authors refer to previous findings that the risk of developing pneumonia was more strongly associated with advanced age than with comorbidities. We agree that there is a general phenomenon of decreasing importance of comorbidity for risk of developing or dying from pneumonia among frail, elderly persons. We have observed that mortality after nursing home–acquired pneumonia was minimally affected by . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Jenny T. van der Steen, PhD
j.vandersteen@vumc.nl
EMGO Institute
VU University Medical Center
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Margaret R. Helton, MD
Department of Family Medicine
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill
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