Altunkalem Seydi Kubra, Ates Bulut Esra, Yavuz Idil, Kavak Hemrin, Kaya Derya, Isik Ahmet Turan
Unit for Aging Brain and Dementia, Department of Geriatric Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey.
Geriatric Science Association, Izmir, Turkey.
Front Psychiatry. 2022 Aug 8;13:863923. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.863923. eCollection 2022.
INTRODUCTION/AIM: Frail and cognitively impaired older patients are particularly vulnerable groups during the pandemic. Lockdowns, social isolation, and physical inactivity considerably affect physical and mental wellbeing. During the pandemic process, routine medical checks and acute medical care services may be disrupted. The study aimed to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of telemedicine in the delivery of healthcare services to elderly patients during the pandemic.
E-mails sent to the e-mail address of the department of geriatrics, which has been actively used for 4 years, between April 2020 and June 2021, were retrospectively evaluated. The time and reason for each application, referral to the patients, demographic data of the patients, and chronic diseases were recorded. E-mail frequencies were considered monthly time series, and time series charts for e-mail frequencies from patients were produced.
A total of 374 e-mails that 213 patients sent were assessed. A vast majority, 97.6% of the e-mails, were sent by proxies. The mean age of patients was 78.7 ± 8.1 years, and 59.2% were women. Hypertension and dementia were the most common comorbidities. The applications mostly occurred in April-May and October-November 2020. The most common complaint in dementia was behavioral disturbances (13.6%). Geriatric outpatient appointments were arranged for 29.9% of the applicants, 14.2% were referred to the emergency department, and 23.0% were offered medical treatment. Outpatient examination and treatment were completed in 15% of the patients and 10.4% of them were hospitalized. The time series charts showed that e-mails were sent more frequently by patients with dementia than the others ( = 0.03).
Telemedicine, which enables many problems of patients to be solved in geriatric practice without face-to-face appointments, can also prevent infections and unnecessary hospitalizations, especially during these unusual pandemic days.
引言/目的：体弱且认知受损的老年患者在疫情期间是特别脆弱的群体。封锁、社交隔离和缺乏身体活动对身心健康有很大影响。在疫情期间，常规体检和急性医疗服务可能会中断。本研究旨在证明远程医疗在疫情期间为老年患者提供医疗服务的可行性和有效性。
对2020年4月至2021年6月期间发送至已活跃使用4年的老年医学科电子邮箱的邮件进行回顾性评估。记录每次申请的时间和原因、患者转诊情况、患者人口统计学数据以及慢性病情况。将邮件频率视为月度时间序列，并绘制患者邮件频率的时间序列图。
共评估了213名患者发送的374封邮件。绝大多数（97.6%）的邮件是由代理人发送的。患者的平均年龄为78.7±8.1岁，59.2%为女性。高血压和痴呆是最常见的合并症。申请大多发生在2020年4月至5月以及10月至11月。痴呆患者最常见的主诉是行为障碍（13.6%）。为29.9%的申请人安排了老年门诊预约，14.2%被转诊至急诊科，23.0%接受了治疗。15%的患者完成了门诊检查和治疗，其中10.4%住院治疗。时间序列图显示，痴呆患者发送邮件的频率高于其他患者（P = 0.03）。
远程医疗能够在老年医疗实践中无需面对面预约就解决患者的许多问题，尤其在这些特殊的疫情日子里，还能预防感染和不必要的住院治疗。
