Aging and Dehydration

Aging and Dehydration

Research Methods

Abstract

My father in law was admitted to the hospital for a routine hip replacement surgery. Upon admission, they realized his blood pressure was normal but his heart rate was two times the rate it should have been at 157 beats per minute (70 is the average). He admitted to me he hasn’t been drinking enough water because it pains him to get up and go to the restroom. This was alarming to me because all this time I thought he was taking care of his health in any way he could. They postponed the surgery for a later date but never diagnosed him as having dehydration.

Introduction

Often misdiagnosed, elderly dehydration admittance is among the highest admitters with the most misdiagnosis. Dehydration can cause a rapid deterioration in health among elderly patients which can cause other complications which are treatable if dehydration is caught in time. Studies from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) listed dehydration as a serious and acute condition for which patients over the age of 65 are admitted into the hospital (Xiao, Barber, & Campbell, 2004).

The purpose of the study from AHRQ was to find out how much money is spent on avoidable hospitalizations of the elderly. Also, how dehydration can trigger other medical complications such as infections, bowel issues, kidney stones, pneumonia, metabolic imbalances, and other complications that require hospitalization. The Health Care Financing Administration started initiative in the early 1990’s to improve the quality of life in nursing homes. This is what initiated the report and the quantitative study into preventable hospitalizations. If the aftercare or at home care of the elderly can increase, then the amount of preventable hospital admissions will drastically decrease (Xiao, Barber, & Campbell, 2004).

The method used for the study was an analysis of hospital discharges using data from 1999. The study covered all patients regardless of payment (i.e.: Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance companies). The data came from 984 hospitals in 24 states and using a validation of 20% of stratified sample of the community hospitals. They used hospital discharge data instead of patient data because they couldn’t identify multiple hospitalizations of individual patients. The data was extracted using medical code ICD-9-CM which means data of volume depletion or first diagnosis of dehydration.