EVOLUTION OF CRITICALLY ILL GERIATRIC PATIENTS WITH HYPERTENSIVE EMERGENCIES IN THE YAOUNDE EMERGENCY CENTER

Abstract

Introduction: Aging is an inevitable part of life, and it brings along two inconvenient events: physiologic decline and disease state [1]. Over 1 billion people worldwide have hypertension, 40% of whom are adults older than 25years, which implies its prevalence increases further with age [6]. Our study focused on (hypertensive emergencies) HTN-E only, with general objective to describe how health factors influence the evolution of geriatric hypertensive emergencies in the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Yaounde emergency center. Materials and methods : This was a quantitative, descriptive, prospective, and cross-sectional study. The study lasted for 06 months, from January to June 2018. Data collection spanned from April to May 2018. The inclusion criteria were: the patients aged 60 years and above, admitted in the ICU for hypertensive emergencies within April to May 2018, the patients who consented to the study, the elderly patients with complete medical records. Results : Our sample was dominated by young-old patients, with a percentage of 73.3% (n = 22). we find a and cardiovascular deficits (43.3%). Our results revealed higher chances of death with higher APACHE II scores and more chances of discharge in case of low APACHE II score.