Introduction:
New medications and surgical techniques made people living longer. So, it affected increase the older patients in the same way. Those 65 and older patients had physical change of aging from younger(1). The widespread conditions affected them easier, more severe and also took a long time to recovery(1). The older patients had changed in body, immunity and mental health. They were coping with many conditions and many were dealing with two or more(1). Respiratory tract disease, heart disease and gastrointestinal tract disease are the most conditions taking them to the emergency room(2). They were high …show more content…
Furthermore, atypical presentations of diseases in the older patient are presented, for example infectious disease without fever, no chest pain in myocardial infarction or no burning with urinary tract infection. It looks interesting for physician to physical examination and investigated. Literature review about the consequences of atypical presentation of older adults increase due to age related physical change, one study show less than half patient present with classic symptoms(6) . Atypical clinical presentation of illness, a high prevalence in patient with cognitive disorders, and the presence of multiple comorbidities complicate their evaluation and management. Patient may be delayed diagnosis, and greater illness severity contributes to a higher risk of adverse outcomes (1). Thailand still had no published research about the prevalence of atypical presentation in the older patients and risk factor associated with these conditions. Disclosing this prevalence will make the health care provider more concerned and more astutely pick up subtle signs of illness. Rather than approaching a patient visit in the “traditional” way, the clinician may also …show more content…
Incomplete medical records in the areas of presenting symptoms and diagnosis were excluded. For the patients with multiple visits during the studied period, only the first visit was collected in order to minimize data deviations.
Study protocols and Measurements
The patient’s demographic data including age, sex, medical histories, current diagnoses, current numbers of medications, and initial vital signs at the ED were randomly recorded using linear systemic sampling by 5 physicians.
Definition
An atypical presentation was defined as a patient with no signs and symptoms or unusual signs and symptoms/unrelated or even the opposite of what is usually expected including a) vague presentation of illness; b) altered presentation of illness; and c) non-presentation of illness such as absence of dysuria, frequency of urination in patients with urinary tract infection and a lack of fever and tachycardia in patients with