Causas de internação em uma unidade geriátrica de um hospital terciário na região metropolitana de Porto Alegre/RS

• Autor(a) principal: Welfer, Márcia
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional PUCRS
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10923/3608
• topic: GERONTOLOGIA; GERIATRIA; SAÚDE DO IDOSO; HOSPITALIZAÇÃO; MORTALIDADE; PUCRS - HOSPITAL SÃO LUCAS

Introduction: Aging is characterized by structural and functional modifications that occur in all individuals. However, more intense alterations may aggravate this process leading to diseases, taking the elderly to use hospital services more frequently. A best understanding of this phenomenon could help in its prevention. Objective: To characterize the causes of elderly hospitalization in the Geriatrics Services of São Lucas Hospital of Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, during one year, relating the data with the seasons and with age groups. Population and Methods: Hospital records of people 60 years old or older interned in the period of March/2005 to February/2006 were reviwed. The analysis was made using the test Qui-square or Fisher’s Exact test with the SPSS 13. 0 software, Chicago, Illinois, EUA. A significance level of 5% It was adopted. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the institution. Results: Female was the predominant sex of the hospitalized elderly. The most frequent age group was the 80-89 years old. Institutionalization In this age group was more frequent. The main signals / symptoms at the hospitalization were worsening of general status, cough and dyspnea, with no differences occurring between age groups and seasons. The most frequent direct cause of internment was respiratory diseases, followed for cardiovascular and genitourinary diseases. Internments due to respiratory diseases were more frequent during autumn and winter and in the age group ≥ 90 years. Cardiovascular disease was the main co-morbidity found. Neurological and psychiatric diseases were less prevalent in people below 70 years old. There was a bigger incidence of deaths in the age group ≥ 90 years, and sepsis was the more frequent direct cause of death. Conclusions: In this unit of geriatric internment, the most frequent cause of internment was respiratory disease and not cardiovascular as it is found in general, perhaps due to the medical attendance of fragile and demented elderly of the hospital are prioritized for this unit. The respiratory diseases had even a more significant contribution as cause of hospitalization during autumn and winter and in those with age ≥ 90 years.