title: [Age of patients admitted to Internal Medicine departments in Spain: a twenty years perspective].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To analyze the age of patients admitted to Spanish General Internal Medicine (IM) departments over the past 20 years with the hypothesis that patients' age has increased significantly.
  
  
  METHODS
  On one hand, we analyzed the age of patients admitted in the department of the authors. Secondly we analyzed data provided by the Ministry of Health. Finally we compared a number of different articles from the late eighties with a recent series.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mean age of patients in our department has increased in 19.3 years in 20 years. According to CMBD, the patients ≥ 75 years increased 4.4% from 2005 to 2009. When comparing the historical and recent series, the average age of the patients increased 8.3 years.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  All three sources confirm the hypothesis that patients admitted to IM are significantly older than some years ago, and that this increase in age is greater than the expected by aging of the general population.
authors.affiliation: Servei de Medicina Interna, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, España. jcasademont@santpau.cat
authors.forename: Jordi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Casademont
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Francia
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Torres
mesh_terms: D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D006748:Hospital Departments / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D008875:Middle Aged; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000639:trends*; D013030:Spain