Doctor Bresnahan is an assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is on staff at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital and Rogers Memorial Hospital, with clinical interests in geriatric psychiatry, medical psychiatry, and psychopharmacology. Please address correspondence to: Medical College of Wisconsin, Department of Psychiatry Cli...

INTRODUCTION The aim of the current study was to present and discuss a broad range of register-based definitions of chronic conditions for use in register research, as well as the challenges and pitfalls when defining chronic conditions by the use of registers. MATERIALS AND METHODS The definitions were defined based on information from nationwide Danish public healthcare registers. Medical a...

One important element of effective communication is having a shared language or at least a shared understanding of the meaning of the central words used in a conversation. One term that is often used in discussions between patients and medical providers, in the academic literature, and in policy discussions, is “chronic disease.” There is not only tremendous variation in the diseases that are i...

INTRODUCTION Multimorbidity is increasingly recognized as a key issue in the prevention and management of chronic diseases. We examined the prevalence and correlates of chronic disease multimorbidity in the general adult Canadian population in relation to age and other key determinants. METHODS We extracted data from the Canadian Community Health Survey 2011/12 on 105 416 Canadian adults. We ...

Currently, an estimated 50 million people in the European Union live with multiple chronic diseases (multimorbidity) and this number is expected to further increase in the near future. As multimorbidity deeply impacts on people’s quality of life -physically, but also mentally and socially-, there is a growing demand for multidisciplinary care that is tailored to the specific health and social n...

The prevalence of Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years or older with 6 or more concurrent chronic conditions (MCC6+) varies geographically (1). Preventing chronic disease costs less than treating it. Chronic diseases that are well managed progress slower than those that are untreated (2). Thus, understanding how Medicare spending is distributed across the United States among older adults with t...

PURPOSE There are few valid data that describe the extent of multimorbidity in primary care patients. The purpose of this study was to estimate its prevalence in family practice patients by counting the number of chronic medical conditions and using a measure that considers the severity of these conditions, the Cumulative Illness Rating Scale (CIRS). METHODS The study was carried out in the S...

Recent literature has emphasized the clinical and socio-epidemiological significance of asthma in the elderly. However, why the disease burden remains high in this group is unclear. Elderly subjects usually have multiple chronic illnesses, and the role played by comorbidities in the context of asthma has been underappreciated. This review aims to summarize the literature associations between co...

OBJECTIVES This research examines intra- and interpersonal differences in multiple chronic conditions reported by Americans aged 51 and older for a period up to 11 years. It focuses on how changes in multimorbidity vary across White, Black, and Mexican Americans. METHODS Data came from 17,517 respondents of the Health and Retirement Study (1995-2006) with up to 5 repeated observations. Hierar...

OBJECTIVES To assess the frequency and characteristics of missed opportunities for influenza immunization in children with chronic medical conditions and, among unimmunized children in that group, to explore parent-reported reasons for not vaccinating their child. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. Data were obtained from billing and immunization registry databases and telephone interviews of p...