Elderly Hospital Patients Arrive Sick, Often Leave Disabled
From: MedPage Today - 08/09/2016
By: Anna Gorman

About a third of patients over 70 leave more disabled than when they arrived

Many elderly patients deteriorate mentally or physically in the hospital,
even if they recover from the original illness or injury that brought them
there. About one-third of patients over 70 years old and more than half of
patients over 85 leave the hospital more disabled than when they arrived,
research shows.

As a result, many seniors are unable to care for themselves after discharge
and need assistance with daily activities such as bathing, dressing, or even
walking.

Hospital staff often fail to feed older patients properly, get them out of
bed enough or control their pain adequately. Providers frequently restrict
their movements by tethering them to beds with oxygen tanks and IV poles.
Doctors subject them to unnecessary procedures and prescribe redundant or
potentially harmful medications. And caregivers deprive them of sleep by
placing them in noisy wards or checking vital signs at all hours of the night.

Interrupted sleep, unappetizing food and days in bed may be merely annoying
for younger patients, but they can cause lasting damage to older ones.
Elderly patients are far different than their younger counterparts - so much
so that some hospitals are treating some of them in separate medical units.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Geriatrics/GeneralGeriatrics/59594
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-07-08/elderly-hospital-patients-arrive-sick-and-leave-disabled

Links:
Hospitalization-Associated Disability
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1104539

Adverse Events in Hospitals
https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-09-00090.pdf

Submitted by Drew Nelson