Aging with multiple sclerosis and associated prevalence, incidence, comorbidities and healthcare utilization patterns in a population based study

Description

Elsebeth Staun-Ram and four colleagues document how multiple sclerosis in Israel has become, increasingly, a disease of older people. Longer survival has quietly built a patient group whose needs were never mapped. The 2026 population study used records from the country's largest health organisation, tracking prevalence and new cases from 2003 to 2022. Rheumatoid arthritis patients served as a comparison group. Among people aged 60 and over, multiple sclerosis prevalence climbed from 4.6 to 18.2 per 10,000 people, with the steepest rise in older Jewish women.

By 2022, patients over 60 made up 31 percent of all cases, lifting the average age of the whole group. New-case rates in older adults stayed flat, so longevity, not fresh incidence, drove the change. Older patients with either disease carried more extra conditions, from stroke to osteoporosis, and used far more hospital and specialist care than matched peers. The authors press health systems to plan for this older, medically complex population.

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Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13562703