Background: Asthma is a disease that has been considered mainly in children and teenagers, but due to the longer life expectancy, more elderly patients with pulmonary diseases suggestive of asthma have been detected. The diagnosis of asthma in patients over sixty years of age, becomes more complex, since there are coexistent diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, along with the difficulty for the performance of function pulmonary tests, which impact upon the adequate treatment and quality of life.
Objective: To spread and update information on the clinical usefulness of elderly asmathic patients.
Methods: We performed a search for Spanish and English articles, in indexed journals from medical databases. In these papers we looked up the words: geriatrics, asthma, aging, immunosenescence, and we chose those papers with clinical relevance.
Results: Of the information obtained from the selected 54 articles, we observed that the elderly asthmatic patients, usually do not have a prompt diagnosis and treatment from the health services, therefore affecting their quality of life.
Conclusions: A better knowledge about asthma in the elderly is required, in order to improve their clinical status and quality of life, resulting in better outcomes.