Higher failure of female older asthma patients in use of inhalants: is it due to older age and/or cognition problems?

Abstract

Ozlem Soyluk,1 Gulistan Bahat2 1Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2Division of Geriatrics, Department of Internal Medicine, Istanbul Medical School, Istanbul University, Capa, Istanbul, TurkeyWe read the article entitled “Sex differences in use of inhalants by elderly patients with asthma” by Hirose et al with interest.1 In this study, the authors examined the relationship between inhalation procedure and sex difference in elderly patients with asthma. They reported that females failed more in “breath holding”. Therefore, they suggested that elderly female patients with asthma have less understanding of inhaled steroid therapy and thus it is particularly important to confirm that the correct inhalation procedure is used by elderly female patients with asthma.View original paper by Hirose and colleagues.

Keywords

• Older age
• Inhalants
• Cognition