Current Issues of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences

Curr Issues Pharm Med Sci., Vol. 34, No. 3, 130-133

Saleh Habibi¹, Arefeh Babazadeh², Soheil Ebrahimpour², 
Parisa Sabbagh², Mehran Shokri²*

¹ Student Research Committee, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran
² Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran

  10.2478/cipms-2021-0027

​© 2021 Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonComercial-No Derivs licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)

Abstract

Morbidity and mortality are higher in older adults with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) than in other age groups. Also, CAP in older adults has various clinical manifestations with other. A higher mortality rate in the elderly with CAP may contribute to a delay in management. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical and laboratory manifestations of CAP in the elderly. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 221 elderly patients with CAP who were admitted to Ayatollah Rouhani Hospital, in Babol, northern of Iran, in 2017-2019. Patient outcomes included 170 cases that recovered from CAP, and 51 cases that died of complications. Patients were evaluated in terms of their clinical and laboratory manifestations. The most common symptoms of pneumonia were cough (79.6%), sputum (73.8%), weakness (72.9%), fever (56%), dyspnea (46.2%). The most frequent underlying disease was ischemic heart disease (43.9%). In our study, clinical and laboratory characteristics in older patients with CAP were evaluated and compared with other studies confirming past findings, but there were differences in some cases, such as vital signs, gastrointestinal symptoms, and disturbance of the level of consciousness. Therefore, it recommends carefully taking the patients’ initial histories and accurately recording their clinical and laboratory symptoms.

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Keywords

community-acquired pneumonia, elderly, clinical manifestation.