Prevalence of heart failure in accomodation structures for the elderly: a monocentric study

Context: Prevalence of heart failure is about 10% among people aged 75 years or older in France. This disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality, it constitutes the first cause of hospitalisation in the elderly. Objectives: Our primary objective was to determine the prevalence of heart failure in our accomodation structure for the elderly which include a nursing home unit and a long term care unit. Secondary objectives were to establish, among residents with heart failure, the number of decompensated heart failure in the previous year, to describe the causes of heart failure, the treatments prescribed and the follow-up. Methods: Our monocentric retrospective study included all attending residents one given day (in this case 25th October 2023). Results: Among 351 résidents included (average age 82.1 years), 75 had heart failure, corresponding to a prevalence of 21.4%. During the previous year, 50 decompensated heart failure were diagnosed. Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction was predominant (61.3%). The most frequent cause of cardiopathy was hypertension (34.7%); the cause of cardiopathy remained unknown in 26.7% of cases. Treatments most frequently prescribed were loop diuretics (73.3%) and beta-blockers (46.7%). A large majority of residents did not benefit from a specialised follow-up. Conclusion: Our study revealed that prevalence of heart failure was higher in our structure than in general elderly population; this must encourage us to take specific measures to prevent cardio-vascular events in accomodation structures for the elderly.