Since the year of 2002, there has been a sharp rise in the hospital admissions in Canada against the disease of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD. The increase has been marked at 69%.
Females and people under the age of 65 are more prone to fall prey to COPD, according to the new research from the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). The lungs become affected due to the disease and progresses the disease further inside the body.
The burdening condition, that has been causing frequent hospitalizations, had been associated with male smokers previously.
Source: Cleveland Clinic
According to Dr. Kate Johnson, who is the assistant professor from the faculty of Medicine and faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC), it is essential to find the gaps within the care provided by the Canadian health systems that can lead to higher utilizations.
According to her, the condition could be avoided with proper preventive or therapeutic interventions that could reduce the pressure on the Canadian health systems. The department of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease can get better with some improvement.
53% of the Total Admissions for COPD Were Females in the Age Group of 40 Years
The information on the hospital admissions in Canada for the disease was checked out by the researchers from UBC, Providence of Health Care Research Institute and St. Paul’s Hospital from Vancouver.
A total of 1,134,359 people were admitted to the hospital for a case of the disease and all of those patients were 40 years or older than that, between the years 2002 and 2017. Amongst the total admissions, 240,611 fell in the category of younger adults who were aged between 40 to 64 years and constituted about 21.2% of the total number of cases.
More than half of the admissions in that same age group were females, about 127,514, who constituted 53%. The annual hospital admissions increased by 68.8%, rising from 52,937 to 89,384, during the 16 year study period.
Source: Dr. Hrushikesh Vaidya
On adjusting the population growth, sex, and age, the hospital admissions in Canada increased by 10%, from 437 to 479 per 100,000 people. The admissions that occurred for other diseases decreased during that time.
The younger females saw the highest increase in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with 12.2%, the increase was followed by the younger males with about 24.4% and older females with 29.8%. The older males saw a decrease in the hospital admissions with a rate of 9%.
Since the year of 2010, in Canada, the hospital admissions have increased rapidly. Even though adjustments have been made according to sex, population growth, and aging, all groups have seen a rise in COPD cases, except for any increase in the older males.
The authors of the research have been in question in the progress that they have made in the treatment have caused any improvement in the COPD care and outcomes. According to the authors, a number of factors are responsible for the increase in the cases.
The factors might include better treatments that have been increasing the lifespans of the people suffering from the condition. The rates of pneumonia and influenza have also changed, along with the changes of hospital admissions practices.
The increase of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is also caused by the changes in the exposure to air pollution, indoor toxic inhalants, and wildfire smoke.
