2Kafkas University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, KARS
3Konya Beyhekim Hospital, Department of Emergency Medicine, KONYA Introduction: The demand for emergency services has been growing with increasing elderly population. This study aims to determine the underlying aetiologies of the emergency department visits by the elderly for proper planning of future services.
Materials and Method: The medical records of patients above the age of 65 years who visited the Emergency Department of the Health, Research and Training Hospital of Kafkas University between 1 January 2013 and 1 January 2015 were retrospectively analysed using the ICD-10 diagnostic codes for data classification.
Results: Geriatric patients rate amongst total number of emergency cases were 19.6%. The average age of patients included in this study was 74.29±7.04 and 53.6% of them were males. The majority of emergency department visits by the elderly were during summers, and 46.3% of them were included in the category red. Circulatory system diseases (46.3%); respiratory system diseases (15.6%); musculoskeletal diseases (9%); endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases (6.5%) and non-specific symptoms and abnormal clinical and laboratory findings (4.5%) were the top five causes for the emergency department visits by the elderly. In addition, our results indicated that 5.2% of the elderly patients were admitted mostly to the coronary intensive care.
Conclusion: Circulatory disorders were the most common cause of the emergency visits and hospitalization of elderly patients. These results highlight the need for new studies for prevention of circulatory system diseases, strategic planning for emergency care services and development of relevant protocols and policies.
Keywords : Emergency; Aged; Chronic Disease, Emergency Treatment