Elderly patients (average age 83 years) are admitted to the Geriatrics ward, generally from the emergency room.
These are patients who present clinical-assistance emergencies linked to acute medical pathologies, or to the exacerbation of chronic pathologies, but who require urgent medical treatment or careful clinical-instrumental evaluation, which makes use of multi-parametric monitoring systems.
The instrumental equipment of the department includes, among other things:
About 80 patients are hospitalized in the Geriatrics ward every month.
The most frequent pathologies are cardiovascular (exacerbated heart failure, ischemic heart disease, arrhythmias), respiratory (pneumonia, chronic bronchitis exacerbations, pulmonary thromboembolism), neurological (stroke or cerebral haemorrhage), metabolic (decompensated diabetes, acute renal failure, severe alterations electrolytic), infectious (septic states of various origins), gastroenterological (acute colitis, complicated diverticulitis), complicated oncological and some of the most common geriatric syndromes (relapsing falls of uncertain origin, syncope, acute dehydration).
In general, patients admitted to the Geriatrics ward are characterized by high complexity, linked to the presence of multiple pathologies, and by a marked fragility; data from international literature show that in these patients the Geriatrics ward have better results in terms of survival and functional capacity at discharge.
The medical team is coordinated by Prof. Giuseppe Zuccalà, specialist in Geriatrics and national referent of the National Association of Hospital Cardiologists for geriatric cardiology, with many years of experience in the management of First Aid (second level DEA) and Emergency Medicine.
The team is composed of 4 specialists in Geriatrics and 8 doctors with specialist training.
There is also a staff of nurses with specific training in the assistance of elderly people and with long experience in the management of the typical problems of elderly patients.
The team specializes in the management of patients with acute or exacerbated pathologies with a higher index of complexity, with particular expertise in cases of large organ failure in advanced stages (heart, kidney and lung).
More specifically, the team has gained a decade of experience in the treatment of pain and delirium, and in general in the use of pharmacological polytherapies in patients with multipathology and high frailty.
For this reason, the medical team manages a specific clinic for the formulation of therapeutic plans for complex patients.
Particular attention is paid to the evaluation of all problem areas of the elderly patient.
All hospitalized patients receive a multidimensional assessment (through the international InterRAI AC assessment tool), performed by personnel with specific training, which includes a verification of functional status and cognitive abilities, nutritional status, mood and behavior. This type of assessment is essential to provide an encompassing response to the needs of the patient and his family.
In the Geriatrics ward, standardized protocols and procedures are used, encoded with specific operating instructions.
The department has also provided itself with guidelines for the management of the most frequent clinical-assistance conditions, based on the most valid and up-to-date scientific evidence available.
