Medical resource utilization patterns and mortality rates according to age among critically ill patients admitted to a medical intensive care unit

Abstract

There is ongoing controversy about how to address the growing demand for intensive care for critically ill elderly patients. We investigated resource utilization patterns and mortality rates according to age among critically ill patients. We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of patients admitted to a medical intensive care unit (ICU) in a tertiary referral teaching hospital between July 2006 and June 2015. Patients were categorized into non-elderly (age <65 years, n=4140), youngelderly (age 65-74 years, n=2306), and old-elderly (age ≥75 years, n=1508) groups. Among 7954 admissions, the mean age was 61.5 years, and 5061 (63.6%) were of male patients. The proportion of comorbidities increased with age (64.6% in the non-elderly vs 81.4% in the young-elderly vs 82.8% in the old-elderly, P