Clinicians may overlook long COVID-19鈥痵ymptoms in older adults
Because fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle aches, memory problems and other symptoms of long COVID-19 are also common in aging, clinicians are it difficult to recognize the condition in their older patients. A of Medicare recipients, recently published in BMJ, estimated that 32% of U.S. older adults who survived COVID-19 had lingering symptoms for at least four months, which was more than double the rate previously estimated for adults under age 65. 鈥淭he challenge is that nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, pain, confusion, and increased frailty are things we often see in seriously ill older adults. Or people may think, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 just part of aging,鈥欌濃痮ne physician told Kaiser Health News. (Kaiser Health News鈥, 5/18/22)