Analysis on the death time of elderly hospitalized inpatients / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To examine the time patterns and seasonality of death of hospitalized elderly patients and to propose proactive management measures.Methods Data were collected on 449 patients aged 60 years and over who had died between August of 2009 to August of 2013 during hospitalization at the Department of Geriatrics,Beijing Friendship Hospital,Capital Medical University.The seasonality and time patterns of the patients' deaths were analyzed retrospectively.Results Pulmonary infections(175 cases,38.97％)and malignant tumors(162 cases,36.08％)were the leading causes of death.Deaths from pulmonary infections were more frequent in spring and summer while deaths caused by malignant tumors were more frequent in summer,but the differences were not statistically significant (all P ＞ 0.05).The peak times of death in patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease were between 2300 pm to 700 am (x2 =11.10 and 14.19,respectively,P＜0.05).Conclusions Pulmonary infections and malignant tumors are the main causes of death in elderly inpatients,which most often occurs during the latter half of the night in patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.