Publication:

Co-morbidity pattern in elderly patients presenting to the geriatric outpatient department at a district hospital in the Himalayan foothills

Background The elderly is a group of people who require more medical attention than others due to the start of the decline of the body functions. Ageing is rapidly progressing in India consequent to the highest number of young people here. The aim of the present study was to find the pattern of comorbidities in patients visiting the geriatric OPD of a District hospital in Himachal Pradesh.

Methods In this study, we have hypothesized that many of the geriatric patients presenting to the OPD will have other comorbidities in addition to the presenting complaint, as a virtue of their old age.

Results The data was collected over a span of 3 months with 1016 patients enrolled for the study. Off this number 510 male and 506 females. 67.2% of patients had some form of comorbidity. 121 patients (11.90%) had one comorbidity, 192 patients (18.9%) had two comorbidities, 168 patients (16.55%) had three comorbidities, 132 patients (13.0%) had four comorbidities, 61 (6.0%) had 5 comorbidities and 13 patients (1.28%) had 6 comorbidities. The most common comorbidity found was hypertension in 380 (37.4%) of the patients followed by some form of mental disorder in 366 (36.02%) patients, followed by dyslipidemia in 327 (32.19%) patients and then Diabetes Mellitus in 256 patients (25.2%) of the patients.

Conclusions Majority of the patients presenting to the geriatric department were multimorbid and had some other comorbidity in addition to their presenting complaint. Hence, the emphasis for specialized care for the geriatric patients. With increase in the life expectancy in India, these need to be addressed early on to provide good and healthy quality of life to the geriatric population and to decrease the burden on our already strained healthcare infrastructure.