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Comorbid Burden and Its Impact on Outcome

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Interventional Cardiology in the Elderly

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Abstract

Due to demographic aging of the population, chronic diseases are growing. If two or more chronic diseases exist at the same time, the state of health of the patient can be referred to as multimorbid. In contrast to comorbidity, there is no primary underlying disease in multimorbidity. In particular, for specific populations such as the elderly, these definitions are however insufficient because the disease pattern, the temporal development of disease, social factors but also geriatrics typical syndromes (such as incontinence, confusion, risk of falls and complex pain conditions), relevant to everyday life functional limitations and disabilities are of great importance. Frailty is a consequence of multimorbidity in these elderly patients. The challenges of managing patients with multimorbidity are multiple, including the lack of guidelines that are applicable to these complex patients and the conflicting recommendations that arise in trying to apply guidelines developed for single disease conditions; competing and shifting patient priorities of conditions to be addressed; the risks associated with polypharmacy; and the lack of evidence on how best to treat patients with specific comorbid illnesses. They are at heightened risk of adverse health outcomes, often beyond the effects of the individual conditions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Friedrich-Alexander-University, Institute for Biomedicine of Aging, Nürnberg, Germany

    Philipp Bahrmann MD, MHBA, FESC

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  1. Philipp Bahrmann MD, MHBA, FESC
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Correspondence to Philipp Bahrmann MD, MHBA, FESC .

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  1. Universitatsklinikum Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany

    Harald Rittger

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Bahrmann, P. (2015). Comorbid Burden and Its Impact on Outcome. In: Rittger, H. (eds) Interventional Cardiology in the Elderly. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21142-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21142-8_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21141-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21142-8

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