A simple points system may soon help guide treatment of elderly
heart failure patients. Researchers at Washington University
School of Medicine in St. Louis found that by counting how many
of seven easy-to-obtain health factors a patient has, physicians
can estimate the patient's risk of dying. The points system may
steer doctors toward considering more aggressive treatments such
as implantable defibrillators and pacemakers for those at low
risk of death. However, elderly patients with a high risk may
want to avoid stressful and unnecessary medical intervention and
may benefit most from palliative or hospice care. "It has
typically been very difficult to predict how long a person
hospitalized with heart failure may survive," says senior author
Michael W. Rich, M.D., associate professor of medicine and a
geriatric cardiologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "That has made
it hard for the treating physician to know how aggressive to be
with therapy." Heart failure afflicts about 5 million people in
the United State