Clinical Characteristics of Covid-19 among Old Adult Patients with Chronic Diseases: A Systematic Review Study

COVID-19[1] is a new infectious disease that has been declared by WHO[2]  as a public health emergency worldwide due to its rapid spread to China and then to other parts of the world. The present study was designed to evaluate the clinical manifestations of this disease in the elderly.

We performed a systematic review on the database of the World Health Organization, CDC[3], PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and lancet. All of the articles published until March 15, 2020, have been extracted from the above articles in English on coronavirus infection, disease, virology, epidemiology, clinical features, treatment, and prevention of the disease. Of the 1376 articles, 5 were selected out of recently published articles focusing on the epidemiological information of the virus, pneumonia caused by new corona virus, and the effects of the disease on different age groups, especially the elderly, and the rest were excluded from the review. The mean age of the patients, the mean age of mortality and the  underlying diseases were chosen as the criteria of data extraction.

 Based on the researchers' perceptions of the text of the articles, 342 cases were included in these 5 studies. The mean age of the patients was 58.4 and that of the diceased patients was 66.5. More than 50% of the total cases had one or more underlying diseases.  

Despite the involvement of various age groups in this infection, the virus is most likely to cause severe complications and fatalities in older people with underlying diseases.