Medical updates: In persons 65 years of age and older, asthma is frequent. Asthma affects about 7.8% of older individuals in the US. That is roughly the same number of asthma sufferers as there are in the overall population. But since they encounter particular difficulties, older persons are more at risk for asthma than younger people.
Some elderly people who have asthma have had it since they were young. Some people get asthma as adults. Allergies are less common in older persons with asthma than in younger people with asthma.
A new study found that older adults with asthma were at a higher risk of depression during the Covid-19 epidemic.
According to a study that was published in the journal Respiratory Medicine, the statistics for older adults with asthma who had previously experienced depression were extremely alarming, with roughly half of them experiencing a recurrence of the disorder during the autumn of 2020, which was noticeable higher than recurrence rates among their peers who did not have asthma.
However, individuals who were alone experienced significantly higher levels of depression.
“When considering the high comorbidity between asthma and depression prior to the pandemic, combined with the loneliness associated with extended periods of lockdown and the stress over being labelled high risk for severe Covid-19-related outcomes, it is unsurprising that this population experienced a precipitous decline in mental health during the pandemic,” said first author Andie MacNeil, a research assistant at the University of Toronto in Canada.
The study identified a distinction between those with pre-pandemic histories of depression and those who had never experienced it previously among 2,017 respondents with asthma using longitudinal data.
The study found that although respondents with a history of depression were at the highest risk, 1 in 7 of those without a history of depression prior to the pandemic experienced depression in autumn 2020, highlighting the impact of the pandemic on these formerly mentally healthy older adults with asthma.
“The pandemic has had detrimental consequences for the mental health of older adults, particularly those who are also navigating chronic health conditions, such as asthma,” says co-author Grace Li, a PhD candidate at University of Victoria.
Furthermore, it was discovered that individuals with asthma who reported more family strife during the pandemic were more likely to experience depression by the fall of 2020.
The researchers also found a correlation between depression in asthma sufferers and experiencing a loss of income or not being able to afford food or supplies during the pandemic.