COVID-19 infection in the elderly. Case control study

COVID-19 infection in the elderly

Abstract

Since Dec 8, 2019 in Wuhan, China, several novel pneumonia cases were found, and then the pathogen was nominated as COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 19) and spread rapidly worldwide till today. For the elderly, they are susceptible and vulnerable to COVID -19 infection. Here we want to realize more manifestations in COVID-19 infected elderly. A total of 398 patients was diagnosed with COVID-19 from 21st January 2020 to 18th April 2020. We divided the patients into elderly group, and non-elderly group by age of 65 years. Associated data were collected for statistical analysis included travel history, days to symptom occurrence, days of symptom to confirming diagnosis, mortality, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, lung infiltration on chest X-ray (CXR), and symptoms. All statistical tests were 2-tailed, statistical significance was defined as P < 0.05. Of 398 patients with COVID-19 infection, the mean age was 38.6 ± 16.8 years. Notably, elders were also more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) initially and lung infiltration (3.4% and 25.4% respectively). Regarding the risk factor of mortality, we found that lung infiltration posed threat to elders (odds ratio, OR 10.75, 95% confidence interval, CI: 1.02-112.93, P-value: 0.048. Elderly patients more often presented with atypical symptoms such as muscle pain and diarrhea. Besides, they are more likely to have lung infiltration related worse outcome with respect to non-elderly patients, symptoms of upper respiratory infection are more common. Non-elderly patients are more likely to have smell and taste dysfunction.