Analysis of Age-related Changes of Characteristics and High Frequency Symptoms in Pre-elderly and Elderly Inpatients

Background Subjective symptoms are the main reason for visiting and readmissions in elderly patients, and symptoms of elderly patients are closely related to ageing. At present, few studies have focused on the age-related changes of symptoms in elderly patients, thus reducing the targete, dynamic and prospective management of symptoms in elderly patients. Objective To analyze the characteristics of hospitalization, incidence of high-frequency symptoms and age-related changes for pre-elderly and elderly inpatients in recent 10 years, and to provide reference and direction for symptoms management, functional improvement in pre-elderly and elderly inpatients. Methods We conducted a retrospective study. Pre-elderly and elderly inpatients of Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology from 2014 to 2023 were included. The medical data retrieval and application platform of the hospital "IDu Cloud" was used for retrieval, and statistical data of the departments receiving treatment, the top 5 patients diagnosed with diseases and the symptoms of patients were extracted through the platform result analysis interface. The frequency of symptoms was defined as ≥5%. The high frequency symptoms of elderly hospitalized patients were divided into 6 categories: common, respiratory system, digestive system, nervous system, circulatory system, urinary system symptoms. Cases (%) were used to describe the distribution of hospitalization departments, disease diagnoses, and symptoms of elderly inpatients. To analyze the differences in high frequency symptoms among inpatients aged 50-<60 years (pre-elderly), 60-<70 years (younger elderly), 70-<80 years (middle-senior elderly), and≥80 years (senior elderly). Origin was used to plot scatter plots and graphs to describe the pattern of change in the incidence of inpatient symptoms with age. Results A total of 1 214 387 pre-elderly and elderly inpatients were included in the study, including 465 488 (38.33%) pre-elderly inpatients, 422 935 (34.83%) younger elderly inpatients, 235 364 (19.38%) middle-senior elderly inpatients, and 90 600 (7.46%) senior elderly inpatients. The first inpatient department was cardiovascular medicine, the first disease diagnosis was malignant tumor chemotherapy in presenium, hypertension in the young and middle aged elderly, and coronary heart disease in advanced age. There were 12, 14, 19 and 23 kinds of high frequency symptoms in 50-<60 years old, 60-<70 years old, 70-<80 years old, and≥80 years old inpatients, respectively. The most prominent symptoms were physical decline, weight loss, cough, chest tightness, and poor appetite. Respiratory symptoms showed a "high increase" trend with aging, the age-related changes of digestive symptoms showed heterogeneity, and neurological, circulatory and urinary symptoms showed a relatively "low increase" trend with aging. Conclusion The incidence of symptoms in pre-elderly and elderly inpatients shows an overall increasing trend with age, and the rate of age-related changes varies for different symptoms. The diagnosis, the number and incidence of high-frequency symptoms in elderly inpatients after 70 years old changed significantly compared with those of the younger elderly, and the role of age-related changes became prominent. The age of 70 years may become an important turning point in the decline of the overall condition of elderly inpatients.