Department of ENT, Atilim University, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey.
Medicana International Hospital, ENT Clinic, Ankara, Turkey.
Niger J Clin Pract. 2021 May;24(5):640-646. doi: 10.4103/njcp.njcp_509_19.
Many changes occur in human physiology with aging, and as expected complaints of geriatric patients differ from the other age groups in population.
The objective of the study was to investigate the common complaints of geriatric patients attending to an otolaryngology clinic (ENT clinic), and to compare their complaints with the 18-65 years aged patients'. Materials and.
A total number of 41888 adult patients who visited the ENT clinic from 2015 to 2018 were retrospectively investigated. Patient complaints were scanned, and subcategorized as five groups (otologic/rhinologic/head and neck/ others/ neoplasias) and all data were evaluated.
Forty-one thousand, eight hundred and eighty-eight patients were included in the study, and 3946 of them were geriatric patients. The most frequent problem was otologic problems, followed by rhinologic problems among geriatric patients. However, rhinologic problems were the major complaint among the 18-65-year-old patients. A comparison of all the individual complaints bringing the geriatric patients to the ENT clinic revealed the three most frequent complaints: 1. hearing loss, 2. balance disorders, and 3. common cold. However, the three major complaints beyond nongeriatric adults were 1. tonsillopharyngeal disease, 2. common cold, and 3. inflammatory and infectious diseases of the sinuses, and these differences were statistically significant (P = 0.001*).
It was found in this study that the five most frequently reported complaints of geriatric patients when applying to an ENT clinic are hearing loss, loss of balance, common cold, cerumen, and tonsillopharyngeal diseases. Unlike from nongeriatric population, otologic problems (most commonly hearing loss) were the essential ENT clinic complaints of geriatric patients.
随着年龄的增长，人体生理学发生许多变化，老年人的抱怨也与其他年龄段的人群不同。
本研究旨在调查在耳鼻喉科诊所（ENT 诊所）就诊的老年患者的常见抱怨，并将其与 18-65 岁年龄组患者的抱怨进行比较。材料和方法：回顾性调查了 2015 年至 2018 年期间访问 ENT 诊所的 41888 名成年患者。扫描患者的抱怨，并分为五类（耳科/鼻科/头颈部/其他/肿瘤），并对所有数据进行评估。
本研究共纳入 41888 例患者，其中 3946 例为老年患者。耳鼻喉科问题是最常见的问题，其次是老年患者的鼻科问题。然而，耳鼻喉科问题是 18-65 岁患者的主要抱怨。对所有导致老年患者就诊 ENT 诊所的个别抱怨进行比较，发现三个最常见的抱怨：1.听力损失，2.平衡障碍，3.普通感冒。然而，非老年成年人的三个主要抱怨是 1.扁桃体咽炎，2.普通感冒，3.鼻窦的炎症和感染性疾病，这些差异具有统计学意义（P = 0.001*）。
本研究发现，老年患者在申请 ENT 诊所时最常报告的五种抱怨是听力损失、平衡丧失、普通感冒、耵聍和扁桃体咽炎。与非老年人群不同，耳科问题（最常见的是听力损失）是老年患者就诊 ENT 诊所的主要原因。
