Lack of effective blood pressure control among an elder hypertensive population in Buenos Aires.

Our purpose was to determine the level of awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension in a population of subjects aged 65 or more. We studied a random sample from the national health care program in Buenos Aires. Letters were mailed to 1000 selected individuals. Among those eligible, 41.4% (n = 414) were enrolled. The mean age was 73.8 years and 68% were women. Prevalence of hypertension in our sample was 77.5% (n = 321). Awareness of hypertension was 60.7% (n = 195). Fifty-four percent (n = 173) of the hypertensive subjects were receiving pharmacologic treatment and only 18.5% (n = 32) of them were controlled. These results show that there is a low level of awareness, pharmacologic treatment, and control of hypertension in the studied elderly subjects.

[Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in Argentina and in other countries]. / La eutanasia y el suicidio asistido en la Argentina y en otros países.

Medical decisions concerning the end of a patient's life have been widely practiced for centuries and there are strong arguments for and against. Advocates typically adduced that terminally ill patients have the right to impose, with physicians' help, their self-determination to avoid extreme suffering and a painful death. Opponents argued that legalizing those practices would not be ethical because it is against the principles of society and the medical profession. During the last years, debates about medical decisions concerning the end of a patient's life have increased in many regions of the planet after these became legal in several countries. In Argentina, those practices are illegal; however, there is evidence that they are frequently practiced. Nevertheless, public discussion on the subject is limited in Argentina. A profound debate on the position of society and physicians concerning terminally ill patients must be initiated.