Abstract
BackgroundFor many years some demographic changes have beentaking place that means also a constant growth of theelderly population. These changes cause an increase of“frail” patients, affected by chronic and degenerative dis-eases, often associated and affected by functional limita-tions and/or disabilities [1]. That has lead to anincreasing demand for long term social and medical ser-vices with a subsequent rise in sanitary aids consump-tion. The traditional modelof care offering specialistand episodic treatments, appears to be no longer suita-ble to guarantee the best results regarding a good qual-ity of life and abilities [2].Materials and methodsPatients arriving to our Operative Unit represent aselected group, affected by different severe diseases, withthe association of high disability and difficult social sta-tus, that often leads to admission to Institutes and tohigher incidence of mortality (that is weakly elderly per-sons) [3,4].From January 2008 to October 2010 we hospitalized2074 elderly patients (1275 men, 799 women). The aver-age age was 75.5 (from 65 years to 108 years).Patients admitted to long-term Institutes from ourUnit are 185 (8.9%).ResultsIn surgery, the elderly patient can complicate not onlythe surgical operation but also the post-operative period,because of many associated diseases becoming acute.At the end of the hospital stay, these patients couldstill need medical assistance, nursing and/or rehabilita-tion organized in an integrated project of variable length[5]. This integrated model is based on a net system of aseries of flexible structures and services that offer theanswer to the assistance needs of the elderly person:integrated home assistance, sanitary residence assistance,hospitalization at home, long-term stays after diseaseand geriatric unit for acute patients. The main purposeis not the recovery, but the functional rehabilitation andthe improvement of the quality of life of the patient [6].ConclusionsThe real geriatric patient is the frail elderly person witha higher risk of developing disabilities and consequentlythe loss of self-sufficiency. Problems come out especiallyat the end of a hospital stay, that is the critical endpoint for the elderly person [1]. The need to extend thetime of treatments and sanitary care lead to the creationof a “model of cronic care”. Thus the purpose becameto “take care”, through a global approach to improvingthe quality of life of the patient and to reduce the inci-dence of disability.
Highlights
For many years some demographic changes have been taking place that means a constant growth of the elderly population
Materials and methods Patients arriving to our Operative Unit represent a selected group, affected by different severe diseases, with the association of high disability and difficult social status, that often leads to admission to Institutes and to higher incidence of mortality [3,4]
At the end of the hospital stay, these patients could still need medical assistance, nursing and/or rehabilitation organized in an integrated project of variable length [5]
Summary
For many years some demographic changes have been taking place that means a constant growth of the elderly population. These changes cause an increase of “frail” patients, affected by chronic and degenerative diseases, often associated and affected by functional limitations and/or disabilities [1]. That has lead to an increasing demand for long term social and medical services with a subsequent rise in sanitary aids consumption. The traditional model of care offering specialist and episodic treatments, appears to be no longer suitable to guarantee the best results regarding a good quality of life and abilities [2]
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