Background: Very elderly patients (aged over 85 years) are increasingly treated in intensive care units (ICU) despite the reluctance of doctors to admit these patients considered fragile. Only a few studies in this age group have described the relevance of treatment of these patients in the intensive care unit.
Methods: he inclusion criterion for this study was patients aged 85 years or over on admission. The exclusion criteria were high dependence before admission or an inability to answer the telephone. Epidemiological data, antecedents, lifestyle, autonomy (ADL score of six items) were recorded on admission to the ICU and by telephone interview at six months.
Results: Eight French ICU included 239 patients aged over 85 years. The most common diagnoses were non-cradiogenic lung disease (36%), severe sepsis / septic shock (29%) and acute pulmonary oedema (28%). 23% of patients were dependent on admission. 71% of patients were still living when discharged from the ICU and 52% were still living at 6 months. Among the non-dependent patients before hospitalisation, 17% became dependent. The only prognostic criteria found were the SAPS II score on admission and the place of residence before admission (nursing home or ”with family” had a poor prognosis).
Conclusions: Although the prognosis of these very elderly patients was good after hospitalisation in the ICU, it should be noted that the population was highly selected with few comorbidities or dependence. No triage criteria could be proposed.
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02849756