Baby boomer risk
May 19, 2010
IMPROVING patient medicines
compliance is a key factor in
dealing with the massive potential
risk of heart attack or stroke among
baby boomers in Australia.
That’s one of the findings of a
report released in Sydney this
morning, which found that one in
five Australians aged over 55 has at
least a 30% likelihood of suffering a
potentially fatal cardiovascular
incident in the next five years.
The Access Economics report,
sponsored by Boehringer
Ingelheim, has renamed baby
boomers as ‘Generation Risk’ after
ranking people in this age group on
a scale similar to the one used for
bushfire warnings, based on an
accumulation of risk factors such as
being overweight, smoking or high
blood pressure.
Almost half of all Australians
aged 55 or older fall into the high
risk end of the scale, facing at least
a 15% chance of a heart attack or
stroke in the next five years.
The report found that on average
20% of people stop taking blood
pressure medications after just one
month, while 80% had stopped
taking them after 30 months.
“The analysis revealed that the
risk of a ‘catastrophic’
cardiovascular event could be
reduced by up to 22 per cent if
these patients continued with
therapy,” said expert adviser on the
report, Prof Murray Esler of Baker
IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute.
The study also found that men
were almost twice as likely as
women to be at ‘high’, ‘very high’,
‘severe’ or ‘extreme’ risk of a heart
attack or stroke, and were also
more likely to have already suffered
a cardiovascular event.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 19 May 10To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 19 May 10
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