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Whereas pneumonia in children and younger adults tends to be an easily recognized illness with abrupt onset, flushing of the skin, fever, cough, shortness of breath, and pain in the chest on breathing, the same infection in older people causes so many fewer and less dramatic symptoms that the disease may be easily overlooked, Emergency Medicine (18#1:52) reports.

In the elderly, therefore, pneumonia is often left undiagnosed and untreated until it is too late, and is a common cause of death. Even when the doctor examines an older person who has pneumonia, he may not find any typical signs during the first few days of the illness. Often, the only abnormalities may be slight fever, lack of desire for food and drink, signs of dehydration (such as dryness of the mouth, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and little if any urination) with mental slowness and loss of alertness.

Older people with these clues of illness, therefore, should be taken to the hospital without delay so that X-rays and blood tests can be performed to establish the diagnosis, and so that treatment can be started without delay. In some cases, however, the doctor may not wish to move the patient. Instead, he will make a tentative diagnosis of pneumonia without X-rays or tests and start treatment at home with an antibiotic, such as penicillin, right away.

If treated in time, most cases begin to respond within 24 hours and thereafter gradually improve until they have become normal again after several days. Complications and slower responses are common, however, when treatment is delayed, if there is an underlying illness (such as heart failure), or in the very old. Since pneumonia is so common, so easily overlooked, and so potentially dangerous, we must all be alert to this possibility, even when an elderly person appears to be just vaguely unwell.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 11:19 am and is filed under General health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.