Aging and the Respiratory System

In the elderly, the chest without evident pathology is characterized by findings that occupy a sort of “no man's land” between the normal and the pathologic. Aging results in physiologic modifications that must be recognized so as not to be interpreted erroneously as pathologies. On the other hand, the elderly tend to become ill more frequently and multipathologies are more frequent. Image diagnostics is a key element in the clarification of often blurry clinical pictures, which may make early diagnosis possible, a great advantage to timely treatment. In this sense, knowledge of heart/lung interactions makes it possible to obtain, from the onset, radiologic and clinical signs of the two physiopathologic models prevalent in the elderly, the “cardiac lung” and the “pulmonary heart.”