Around 11 per cent of elderly people in hospital will suffer a serious heart attack while there, a new study has discovered. They are also twice as likely to die from the attack.
Researchers made the discovery when they studied the progress of 7,054 patients who were admitted to a veterans' hospital between 2003 and 2004. Of these, 792 patients - or 11 per cent of the total - suffered a heart attack while in the hospital.
They don’t investigate why this is happening, although recent reports of thousands of medical mishaps in hospitals may give us a clue.
(Source: Archives of Internal Medicine, 2006; 166: 1410-6).
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