Final Flashcards
What signifies hearing loss with an audioscope set at 40dB?
inability to hear 1000 or 2000Hz in both ears or either frequency in one ear
What is often the first sign of illness in the elderly?
Functional loss (decreased mobility, increased falls, confusion, incontinence)
What are physical activity indicators to check?
- Level of activity
- Ability to do household chores
- Go up AND down stairs
- Walk outside and around town
- Wash, dress and groom oneself
What are the 7 common background problems in elderly patients?
- Nephrotoxic agents (NSAIDS) accumulate and cause side effects
- Hepatic mass and function decline and reduction of reserve (drug toxicity danger)
- Malnutrition (increase in protein bound serum drug conc.)
- Delerium (infection, pain, oversedation)
- Disability (may be worsened by stress/pain/illness)
- Pressure sores (immobilization, incontinence, malnutrition)
- Falling (weakness, hypotension, deconditioning, pain)
What are factors that may delay cognitive decline?
- High level of education
- Physical exercise
- Staying intellectually engaged
- Maintaining social networks (friends)
- Healthy diet
What are the consequences of decreased cell response to growth factors in the elderly?
- Diminished immunity and wound healing
2. Diminished production and proliferation of lymphocytes
What are the consequences of diminished endocrine function?
- Increased glucose tolerance
- Decreased clearance of thyroid hormone
- Increased LDLs
- Altered drug pharmokinetics/dynamics
- Decreased production of sex hormones
What are the consequences of decreased renal function in the elderly?
- Diminished ability to conserve water or salt
- Decreased clearance of a water load
- Increased tendency for inappropriate antidiuretic secretion
- Diminished excretion of some drugs
What are consequences of altered cardiopulmonary function in the elderly?
- Decreased myocardial contractility
- Increased end-diastolic and end-diastolic volumes
- Decreased baroreceptor activity
- Decreased airway support and elasticity
- Increase residual volume/lung compliance
Which blood pressure will rise throughout life
Diastolic (140/90 is normal in those over 60)
Normal temp for elderly patients?
97.4 F
What is the fifth vital sign?
Pain (undereported/undertreated)
- Reduced sensitivity in those over 50
- Decreased temp sensitivity
- Increased light touch sensitivity
which decreases with age T-cell function or number?
Function
What should you know about pneumonia and influenza
- Most common cause of infectious death
- Confusion main symptom in 2/3
- Fever present in only 10-30%
- Cough with purulent sputum in 40% of cases
Frontal bossing is associated with ….?
Paget’s
Lymphadenopathy in the the elderly should make you think ….?
Malignancy
eye pain in the elderly should make you think …?
Glaucoma or temporal arteritis (check temporal arteries)
What are some good functional vision screen questions?
1. Can you see: Regular newsprint Street name signs Medicine bottle labels Faces of friends from across the room
5 Leading causes of blindness in the elderly?
- Glaucoma
- Macular degeneration
- Senile cataracts
- Diabetic retinopathy
- Optic nerve atrophy
Cataracts facts
- Vision = hazy, develops slowly
- Blue seems green, yellow seems white
- Needs to shade eyes
- Surgery is 95% successful
Cataract risks
- aging
- Long term exposure to sunlight
- Smoking!!
- high cholesterol
- diabetes
- oral cortisone (long term)
- eye injury
What is the most common cause of irreversible eyesight loss late in life
Macular degeneration
Glaucoma facts
- Loss of peripheral vision
- Tends to be familial
- Normal pressure 12-21 mmHg
- Open angle: 90% Tx w/eye drops or laser
- Angle closure: iris folds back and blocks canal of schlemm
Eye conditions that affect CONTRAST before ACUITY
- Glaucoma
- Cataracts
- Age related macular degeneration
Where does primary hearing loss with age occur?
The inner ear and the auditory nerve
Strategies for testing patient hearing?
- Whispering
- Weber-Rinne
- Giving commands outside the patients visual field
Vestibular changes with aging
- Vestibular ocular reflex does less processing
- Decreased response to gravity and linear acceleration
- BPPV more common
- Vestibular symptoms precede 50% of falls
What is the functional triad of oral health?
- Masticatory efficiency
- Speech
- Appearance