Pressure ulcers: the reality of an Internal Medicine ward
Keywords:
pressure ulcer, elderly, neuropathy, hospital stay, mortalityAbstract
Pressure ulcers (PU) are a major medical condition with significant
prognostic relevance within the elderly. In order to characterize
PU bearing patients in an Internal Medicine ward, a retrospective
and descriptive analysis of the clinical records of all patients admitted in Coimbra University Hospital - Medicine 1 ward during
a 6 months period (between January and June 2006) was done,
regarding several individual criteriae including age, sex, home
conditions, major admission diagnosis, duration of hospital stay,
mobility status, co-morbilities, mortality and number, location and
severity of pressure ulcers.
The results showed that patients reported as PU bearers when
discharged represent a small fraction of the real PU patients count.
Most PU bearing patients were over 65 years old. An important
association was found between PU and cronic neuropathy with
sensitive, motor or cognitive deficits (p<0,001), such as cerebral
vascular accident, and also institutionalization in retirement homes
(p<0,001). The majority of PU were sacrococcigeal. Fifty per cent
of the new PU detected in the ward arised in patients who already
presented PU in admission. The presence of PU determined a
longer duration of hospital stay (p<0,001) and a higher mortality
rate (p<0,001) of the affected patients.
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