Prevalence of comorbid conditions with aging among patients with diabetes and cardiovascular disease

Abstract

Objectives: The objectives were to develop a methodology to understand the prevalence of medically complex patients, and to apply the methodology to examine patients with one or more of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and heart disease.

Methods: Prevalence was measured using insurance data by calculating the proportion of days patients in a health state of interest contributed to the total days of enrollment. Graphs summarized the prevalence patterns within age and morbidity categories. Results by age and gender were supplemented with cubic spline curves that closely fit the prevalence data.

Results: The study provides basic epidemiologic information on changes with aging in the prevalence of patients with one or more comorbid conditions. Patients such as those with hyperlipidemia alone rose in prevalence at younger ages and fell at older ages, whereas the prevalence of other patients, such as patients having hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease, progressively increased with age. With straightforward extensions of the methodology other issues such as the incidence of emergency department visits and hospitalizations might be investigated.

Keywords: Medically complex patients; diabetes; heart disease; hyperlipidemia; hypertension.

Figure 1

Patients with hyperlipidemia (▴ - ▴), hypertension (+ - +), diabetes (▪ - ▪), and heart disease (▵ - ▵)

Figure 2

Prevalence by age among patients with hyperlipidemia alone (▪ - ▪), hypertension alone (+ - +), and both hyperlipidemia and hypertension (▵ - ▵)

Figure 3

Prevalence with age among patients with hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and diabetes (▵ - ▵); hyperlipidemia and diabetes (+ - +); hypertension and diabetes (▴ - ▴); and diabetes (▪ - ▪) alone

Figure 4

Prevalence with age among patients with hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and heart disease (▴ - ▴); hyperlipidemia, hypertension, diabetes and heart disease (+ - +); hypertension and heart disease (▵ - ▵); and hyperlipidemia and heart disease (▪ - ▪)

Figure 5

Prevalence by age and comorbid conditions for females (□ - □) and males (▪ - ▪). The curves fit to the data had high R2 values ranging from 96.43 for patients with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and heart disease to 99.91 for patients with hypertension and hyperlipidemia.