Article: Long COVID More Common in Seniors: What Doctors Need to Know - Medscape

[Chandelier]

Long COVID More Common in Seniors: What Doctors Need to Know

Many long-COVID symptoms in people older than 65 years mimic signs of early aging, particularly cognitive, cardiac, and kidney issues.

www.medscape.com

AI Summary:

Underestimated Prevalence in Seniors

Although the CDC estimates that about 4% of long COVID patients are over the age of 65, experts believe the true number is significantly higher. Many symptoms of long COVID in seniors—such as memory loss, fatigue, or heart issues—are often misattributed to normal aging, making diagnosis difficult. As a result, many older adults may suffer from long COVID without being properly diagnosed or treated.

Challenges in Diagnosis and Medical Bias

Long COVID can worsen existing conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and dementia. However, older patients often face medical bias, with symptoms dismissed as age-related. Doctors may overlook the possibility of long COVID when presented with issues like blood clots or kidney dysfunction. This "medical gaslighting" leads to delayed or missed diagnoses, particularly in seniors who already struggle to be taken seriously in clinical settings.

To counter this, physicians are encouraged to compare a patient’s current condition to their pre-COVID health status. However, older adults are also underrepresented in clinical trials for long COVID treatments, leaving major gaps in evidence for how therapies might work in this population.

Accelerated Aging and Health Risks

Long COVID appears to speed up biological aging, particularly affecting organ systems. In older adults, this includes higher risks of kidney disease, diabetes, cardiovascular events like strokes and heart attacks, and potentially new-onset dementia. Preventative medications such as statins or ACE inhibitors may help, but further research is needed.

Early findings also indicate that COVID-related neurological symptoms could increase dementia risk, particularly among those already predisposed due to age.

Economic Consequences for Seniors

The financial burden of long COVID is especially heavy for retired individuals on fixed incomes. Many treatments that could relieve symptoms—like low-dose naltrexone, Xolair, or blood thinners—are not covered by Medicare and are often unaffordable. As a result, patients may deplete their savings and eventually rely on Medicaid.

Moreover, the rapid onset of symptoms often leaves little time for older adults to adjust their lifestyles. Unlike gradual cognitive decline, the accelerated symptoms of long COVID may force abrupt transitions to assisted living or in-home care—costs that are typically not reimbursed. Physicians may need to support patients by coordinating community resources, such as pharmacy delivery or family-assisted care.

Conclusion

Long COVID poses unique and serious risks for older adults, from underdiagnosis and medical bias to rapid health decline and financial hardship. Physicians need to approach senior care with a deeper understanding of how long COVID presents in this age group and advocate for their inclusion in research and access to affordable treatments.

 

[Sean]

Which is one of the more important reasons why I, being in my early 60s, do everything I reasonably can to avoid catching it.

Successfully so far. Fingers crossed.

 

[rvallee]

As a result, many older adults may suffer from long COVID without being properly diagnosed or treated.

This is a sub-problem. The problem is upstream from this. This instance of the problem can't be solved without solving its root cause: no one is being properly diagnosed or treated. The very best out there is sub-par, far below professional standards, arbitrary and chaotic.

This "medical gaslighting" leads to delayed or missed diagnoses, particularly in seniors who already struggle to be taken seriously in clinical settings.

This is the root cause. Fixing this root cause will fix most of the downstream problems it causes. Decades of effort have made it clear the medical profession wants this root cause to remain in place. So this is the root cause to the root cause. Maybe it can be taken further upstream. Maybe not. But all of those problems are derivatives of where the gaslighting is considered good in itself.

To counter this, physicians are encouraged to compare a patient’s current condition to their pre-COVID health status. However, older adults are also underrepresented in clinical trials for long COVID treatments, leaving major gaps in evidence for how therapies might work in this population.

This won't do it. At all. It is known: oh, you're just getting older. On the other side is: you're too young to be ill. Neither of those things really make sense. So there is problem with making sense in the first place. Absurd ideas take hold in medicine at a rate and with a creep that is completely unique in the professional world.

Long COVID poses unique and serious risks for older adults, from underdiagnosis and medical bias to rapid health decline and financial hardship. Physicians need to approach senior care with a deeper understanding of how long COVID presents in this age group and advocate for their inclusion in research and access to affordable treatments.

Literally none of this is unique. This describes the whole experience with not just Long Covid, but with chronic illness, which has been documented for decades. But it is serious. It is not taken seriously. Another root on that rotting tree.

Nothing will happen until there is very loud and frank admission: we fucked up, big time, we condemned millions to misery and early death, aggravated existing harms and created entirely new ones purely out of hubris and ego, and we need to undo this, we need to meet this moment with unparalleled force and commitment, and this will mean holding people accountable, history will not be judging us too harshly because those guilty of this crime against humanity will be punished.

Realistically, nuclear fusion will be commonplace before any of this even begins to curdle up. Which is likely the root of all the root causes: a complete inability to assess their own performance in too many areas, mainly those where no technology provides clear answers about pathology. Impunity might be the root cause of it all. Any system where indefinite failure is not just accepted but even encouraged is a failed system. Encourage failure, lying and fraud, and you get failure. Funny how this doesn't work.