Abstract

GONZALEZ QUIJADA, S. et al. Pneumonia in the aged patient: is the clinical presentation atypical?. An. Med. Interna (Madrid) [online]. 2001, vol.18, n.3, pp.20-22. ISSN 0212-7199.

Objective: Some new studies have questioned the often atypical character of pneumonia in aged patients. Therefore to study the different clinical presentation of this patology is our aim. Material and methods: Retrospective analysis of 179 cases of pneumonia in patients aged older than 65 years who were admitted in our hospital during 1992. Results: The average age of the patients was 78 years, being 65.9% of them men. 91% presented pneumonias adquired in the community. 73.1% showed a typical dominant clinical presentation (febrile-respiratory); respiratory (47.4%), febrile (25.7%). The rest presented atypical patterns; mental-neurologic or "cerebral dysfunction" (10.6%), perambulation-general state (6.15%) and digestive-abdominal (9.5%). The respiratory pattern was associated to the presence of respiratory antecedents (p<0.001); the febrile pattem to the absence of cardiovascular antecedents (p<0.05); the mental-neurologic to the presence of neurologic antecedents (p<0.001) and the alteration of perambulation-general state to an evolution of more than 7 days (p<0.05). Conclusions: The greatest number of our pneumonia patients older than 65 years follows a typical clinical pattern febrile-respiratory). The patient’s prior pathology conditions the clinical presentation.

Keywords : Pneumonia; Aged patients; Clinic.

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