Artificial intelligence is being used to screen for several conditions that commonly afflict older adults, and a recent AI-enabled analysis has gleaned new insights into chronic coughing, which disproportionately afflicts elderly women, researchers said.
Although coughing itself is mostly an uncomfortable nuisance, chronic cases can be caused by more serious underlying conditions, such as an illness or hazardous air quality, exports note.
Perhaps most ominously, chronic coughing can be a symptom of long-COVID; approximately one-fourth of older adults who contracted COVID have at least one long-term symptom, such as coughing, according to the National Institute on Aging.
The new coughing study comes from data collected by Hyfe, a company that has developed an AI-enabled app that specifically tracks respiratory conditions.
Almost three-fourths of those with chronic cough are aged more than 55 years, and 70% of the older cohort are women, according to Hyfe’s findings, which were announced in late October. The majority of chronic coughers in the 4,000-person sample cough more than 450 times a day, Hyfe reported.
In addition, 20% of respondents said that their chronic coughing has been an issue for 10 years or more, the research showed.
Although the AI study linked somewhat benign comorbidities such as asthma and allergy to the coughing, a more concerning linkage was coughing and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The latter can be improved by technology such as air purifiers and other methods to remove indoor air pollutants, the McKnight’s Clinical Daily reported last year.
Even among older adults who never have smoked or had respiratory issues before, episodes of coughing could signal greater mortality risk, studies have suggested.
On the flipside, just because an older adult is coughing doesn’t mean his or her life is in danger. There are different kinds of coughs, including wet, dry and spasmodic.
The most common cause of chronic coughing is postnasal drip, which often is a harmless — albeit annoying — condition caused by normal temperature and weather fluctuations, as one senior living operator has noted.
