The oral communication of the Emergency Service of the Virgen de la Luz Hospital in Cuenca ‘Sub-analysis in nonagenarians of the study of short-term prognostic factors in the elderly treated in the Emergency Department due to infection’ has been selected among the ten best presented at the XXXII Congress of the Spanish Society of Emergency and Emergency Medicine (SEMES), which brought together more than 3,500 professionals from the country’s emergency services in Vigo.
The deputy physician of the ‘Virgen de la Luz’ Emergency Service, Diana Moya Olmeda, is the main author of this communication, which is also signed by Dr. Félix González Martínez, head of the Emergency Service, and the nurse from the Cuenca hospital, Alba Caterina Del Herraiz hole. Similarly, the work is signed by doctors Agustín Julián Jiménez, from the Toledo University Hospital Complex, and Juan González del Castillo and Eric García Lamberechts, from the San Carlos Clinical Hospital in Madrid.
In her work, Dr. Moya starts from the data of a multicenter study in which 69 Spanish hospitals participated, including the one in Cuenca, on the care of patients over 75 years of age in emergency services and performs a sub-analysis studying the factors associated with mortality but in patients over 90 years of age who attend the emergency room for an episode of infection.
The article included 316 nonagenarian patients, 109 men and 207 women, and following a detailed analysis, the author concluded that there are identifiable factors following a first care in the Emergency Department that are associated with short-term mortality of the nonagenarian patient, such as be level of consciousness, performance status, systolic blood pressure, or serum lactate.
In addition, the physician, beyond the conclusions of the related multicenter study in 69 hospitals, has determined that, in the case of patients over 90 years of age, heart failure as a history also becomes a factor added to this group of patients.
As explained by Dr. Moya, who has led this communication presented at the SEMES National Congress, infections continue to be a frequent cause of mortality in elderly patients, more than 40 percent in those over 65 years of age and the second cause of death following cardiovascular diseases and therefore, as he said, “it is a challenge for the Emergency Services to identify the elderly with high vital risk or with serious infection as soon as possible”.
Likewise, he has highlighted the importance of the professionals of the Cuenca Hospital and its Emergency Service participating in all the multicenter studies that are carried out together with other hospitals in the country, and has indicated that in the case, for example, of this type of specific analysis related to the care of elderly patients, its results are also essential for a health area such as Cuenca, which has a significant percentage of the elderly population and has advocated continuing to maintain research work.
“In my opinion, clinical care is important, but it is also fundamental to dedicate ourselves to research, and not only in these matters, but also in everything related to prevalent matters that are treated in the Emergency Services, because this activity helps us grow and continue learning” , has pointed out.
For his part, the head of the Emergency Service of the Virgen de la Luz, Dr. Félix González, has expressed his satisfaction with this recognition at the National Congress of SEMES and has highlighted that the Emergency professionals of the Cuenca hospital regularly cooperate with multiple studies with Spanish hospitals “in an attempt to improve our quality of care and learn more regarding the specific characteristics of certain pathologies”, he said.