Abstract
Introduction: Influenza is responsible for serious illness, especially in elderly. It has short term morbidity as well as long term morbidity and mortality during the acute infection, recovery could be long and sometimes incomplete. This could lead to persistent decrease in health and function, involving catastrophic disability, which has acute complications on the well-being and support needs of older adults and their caregivers. This means that prevention of infection and effective management when illness has occurred are of great importance. This sets the stage for a discussion of newer influenza vaccine products that have been developed with the aim of improving vaccine effectiveness in older adults. We will highlight the importance of influenza prevention to support healthy aging, along with the need to improve vaccine coverage rates using available vaccine products, and to spur development of better influenza vaccines for older adults in the near future.
Aim of work: In this review, we will discuss flu shot
Methodology: We did a systematic search for flu shot using PubMed search engine (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) and Google Scholar search engine (https://scholar.google.com). All relevant studies were retrieved and discussed. We only included full articles.
Conclusions: Elderly are susceptible to poor outcomes from influenza in short-and long-term. Both complications of acute illness and continued functional disability have major effects on the health and well-being of elderly and their families. So, prevention is of highly importat as to support healthy elderly. Though immune responses to vaccination could be less optimal in elderly, especially those who are weak, vaccination remains to be an important method in the prevention of severe outcomes from influenza. Many vaccines are available for older adults, including standard-dose trivalent and quadrivalent formulations of split virus and subunit vaccines, high-dose split-virus vaccine, adjuvanted subunit vaccine, and recombinant HA vaccine. Due to the relative qualities and availability of these products could change between jurisdictions, vaccinating with whatever proper and approved product is available continues to be a major recommendation; vaccination coverage continues to be less optimal in most states. As our understanding of immune changes with aging, and frailty progresses, vaccine products will perfectly be more tailored to generate optimal protection for this susceptible population