Clinical Profile of Anemia in Elderly: A Cross Sectional Study from a Tertiary Care Centre

It is easy to overlook anemia in the elderly, since such symptoms as fatigue, weakness, or shortness of breath may be attributed to the aging process itself. Although the prevalence of anemia does increase with age, healthy aging is not usually associated with anemia. So, anemia should not be accepted as an inevitable consequence of aging, as a cause (often multifactorial) is identified in about 80% of the elderly patients. The purpose of this cross sectional study was to assess the clinical profile of elderly patients with anemia and to study characteristic hematological types of anemia and also to arrive at an appropriate etiological diagnosis. 50 patients aged 60years and above with Hb% <13gms% in males, and < 12 gms% in females were enrolled into the study. 64% patients were male and the mean age of patients was 66.65 years. The most common presentation was easy fatigability in 44(88%) patients, followed by dyspnoea in 35(70%) and giddiness in 30 (60%) patients. Etiologically, the most common cause of anemia in our study was anemia of chronic inflammation (26%), followed by iron deficiency anemia (24%) and hematological malignancies (18%), while B12 and Folate deficiency were responsible for 10% of anemias in the elderly. Morphologically, normocytic anemia (contributed mainly by diseases of chronic inflammation and hematological malignancies), was the most common type present in 26 (52%) patients, while 16 (32%) had microcytic anemia and 8 (16%) had macrocytic anemia with a p-value of 0.001, which was statistically significant. Anemia in elderly is not due to inevitable consequence of aging. They should be thoroughly investigated to define etiology and then appropriately treated.