Rudorff K H, Fahrenkrog U, Jahnke K
Fortschr Med. 1981 Aug 27;99(31-32):1236-46.
The clinical signs of thyroid disease in older people may differ considerably from those in younger patients. The symptoms are often incorrectly interpreted and attributed to old age. The age is also important to the kind of therapy. The normal clinical hyperthyroidism-indices are not relevant in the diagnosis of hyperthyroidism in older patients. Organic symptoms predominate in old age (loss of weight, muscular asthenia, tremor, cardiac arrhythmia, stenocardia, congestive cardiomyopathy). Most of the time they are wrongly interpreted as additional symptoms of old age. Probably it is not the age that causes the difficulties in hyperthyroidism-diagnostics in old age, but the atypical symptoms of solitary or multilocular adenomas, which increase with advancing age. A special symptom of hyperthyroidism in old age, often misinterpreted, is "apathetic" hyperthyroidism. Radioiodotherapy is indicated in older patients with hyperthyroidism.
老年人甲状腺疾病的临床症状可能与年轻患者有很大差异。这些症状常常被错误解读并归因于衰老。年龄对治疗方式也很重要。正常的临床甲亢指标在老年甲亢患者的诊断中并不适用。老年患者以器质性症状为主（体重减轻、肌肉无力、震颤、心律失常、心绞痛、充血性心肌病）。大多数情况下，这些症状被错误地解读为衰老的附加症状。在老年甲亢诊断中造成困难的可能并非年龄，而是随着年龄增长而增多的单发性或多发性腺瘤的非典型症状。老年甲亢的一个常被误解的特殊症状是“淡漠型”甲亢。放射性碘疗法适用于老年甲亢患者。
