Season 3 Episode 9: Psoriasis Beyond the Skin - Real-World Signals in Senior Care

Andie Morataya

Hello everyone and welcome to the Better Living Through Data podcast! Anthony, when people hear the word psoriasis, I think a lot of times they just picture, like, a minor rash or maybe a patch of dry skin on an elbow, right? But tomorrow is World Psoriasis Day. This is an awareness day where the global psoriatic community comes together to highlight something way bigger. We are talking about 125 million people across the world who live with this every single day.

Anthony Pero

125 million. That is an enormous population, Andie, so I'm glad we're talking about this on today's episode. And you hit the nail on the head. The biggest clinical misconception is that this is purely cosmetic, just a surface issue. But the underlying biology is driven by systemic chronic inflammation. It is not just on the skin.

Andie Morataya

Right! This is something that's inside the whole body. Like, clinicians measure the skin part with things like the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index, or PASI, looking at redness, thickness, scaling, and Body Surface Area, or BSA. But while those plaques are visible on the outside, that systemic inflammation is actually quietly raising the risk for severe health problems beneath the surface.

Anthony Pero

Yeah, exactly. The systemic inflammatory cascade affects the vascular walls. Endothelial dysfunction occurs, which directly links psoriasis to elevated risks of cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes. When clinicians and health systems view dermatological care in isolation, they miss the fact that vascular inflammatory stress is actively compounding heart disease risk in these patients.

Andie Morataya

Heart disease and type 2 diabetes. That is so scary for someone who thought they were just dealing with a skin condition! And on the human side, when you look at awareness campaigns, you really see what people are going through. The relentless itching, the physical burning, the visible lesions on their skin. It directly correlates with huge rates of depression, anxiety, and social isolation. It impacts every single part of daily life.

Anthony Pero

Depression and anxiety are huge, Andie. And in older adults or complex populations, that emotional and physical strain can completely disrupt basic daily functioning. Which brings up a major challenge in clinical research: traditional clinical trials often fail to capture how this systemic burden plays out over time in real world, long term care settings.

Andie Morataya

Oh, absolutely. Trials are so controlled, right? They miss the actual day to day reality.

Anthony Pero

They really do. And that evidence gap in aging populations is where real world data becomes essential. At PointClickCare Life Sciences, we have a clinical dataset with over 750,000 unique patient records for psoriasis and other dermatological conditions. And out of those, more than 100,000 are active unique records specifically in long term care and post acute care settings.

Andie Morataya

Wow, that is massive for a population that usually gets totally left out of major clinical trials!

Anthony Pero

It is unprecedented depth, honestly. We are tracking patients across an average length of long stay over 800 days, in a broader database of over 15 million patients aged 65 and older spanning more than ten years. And because electronic health records in these facilities capture on average 50 plus data points per patient per day, researchers can track subtle changes that standard studies never see.

Andie Morataya

50 plus data points every single day! Wow. So, what kind of subtle changes are we talking about? Like, how does that translate to actual patient care?

Anthony Pero

Well, think about Activities of Daily Living, or ADLs. We can measure functional declines in self care, personal hygiene, and bathing. If a patient experiences a flare up or severe joint pain from psoriatic arthritis, their ability to perform basic self care drops. A clinical trial snapshot every three months will miss that granular decline, but 50 data points a day over an 800 day stay catches it immediately.

Andie Morataya

That makes so much sense! If bathing or personal hygiene suddenly becomes painful or difficult, that data shows up right away in their daily ADL logs. And what about treatment patterns? Because older adults are often taking so many different medications at once, right?

Anthony Pero

Polypharmacy is a massive factor. With this dataset, biopharma researchers can analyze actual real world prescribing and adherence trends. They can track topical corticosteroid switching, antimetabolite usage, time to prescription, and actual discontinuation rates. You see how therapies behave when real world complexity and multiple chronic conditions enter the equation.

Andie Morataya

Right, because taking five or six drugs at once is totally different than taking just one drug in a clinical trial! And we also capture vital sign observations too; like blood pressure, pulse, and blood sugar?

Anthony Pero

Exactly. Pulse, temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar, oxygen saturation, respiration, weight. When you combine those continuous vital signs with longitudinal Social Determinants of Health, or SDOH, profiles like social isolation and health literacy, you get a complete picture. It empowers biopharma to move away from reactive management and toward proactive, value based interventions that improve actual patient lives.

Andie Morataya

I love that. Moving from just reacting to flares to truly understanding the whole person and intervening early. That is how we build a world free from the burdens of psoriatic disease.

Anthony Pero

Well said, Andie. It all comes back to seeing the full picture of the patient.

Andie Morataya

That's exactly it! On that note, if you'd like to learn more about our clinical dataset on Psoriasis, you can check the link in today's podcast description.

Anthony Pero

Thanks everyone for joining us today on this episode of the Better Living Through Data podcast!

Andie Morataya

Thanks everyone! See you next week!