Abstract
There is presented current knowledge about complications of the treatment of thromboembolic disease in older people in this article. Incidence of deep vein thrombosis at persons older than 75 years is ten times more frequent than in the second decade of life.
The combination of various physiological and pathophysiological processes is present. Heparin and warfarin are used in the treatment of thromboembolism.
Bleeding is the main complication of anticoagulation. HIT is infrequent in comparison with bleeding but it is potentially life-threatening disorder.
HIT is caused by the production of antibodies against complexes of platelet factor 4 and heparin. Patients do not suffer from bleeding during thrombocytopenia but from thrombotic events.
Another serious adverse reaction is warfarin skin necrosis that is caused probably by rapid decrease of anticoagulants protein C and S after the initiation of treatment. Osteoporosis is also more frequent at patients on long-term anticoagulation treatment.