Impaired consciousness in febrile elderly hospitalized patients in infectious disease and neurologic

Increasing rate of elderly population and pursuant increase in infectious disease in senile, underline the importance of infectious disease in this group. The goal of this study is evaluate one of the critical manifestation of infectious disease in senile inclusively fever and impaired consciousness.

this study was a prospective descriptive- analytic that performed in 2013. In all 1464 hospitalized patients in infectious disease and neurologic disease units, 464 patients (31.69%) were senile. Patients, who have temperature above 37.8 ̊c, were assessed. In final, 80 senile patients with primary diagnosis of fever and decreased level of consciousness, included to the study. The assessment of clinical status was performed concurrent hospitalization and 24 hours after that. The collected data were analyzed by using the SPSS software.

80 patients were eligible with including criteria, 53 patients were male. The most common infections led to impaired consciousness and fever included pneumonia, urinary infections, sepsis with uncertain zone and abdominal infections, respectively. The highest and lowest mortality rate was related to pneumonia (35.5%) and urinary infections (12.5%), respectively.

Given that to the results of this study, infectious diseases in elderly patients demand more attention. Elderly with fever and impaired consciousness, who recovered during early hours of hospitalization, had better prognosis. Therefore decrease of fever, serum therapy and correction of primary metabolic disorder should be noticed.