Introduction:

with the increase in life expectancy at birth, morbidity and mortality are high among geriatric population, and so are the needs for specialized medical care, including the intensive care.

Objective:

to characterize the geriatric population admitted in a Municipal Intensive Care Unit.

Materials and Method:

a cross-sectional study was carried out at the Teaching General Hospital “Orlando Pantoja Tamayo” in the municipality of Contramaestre. The universe was formed by 658 patients of both sexes, aged 60 years and older, during the period from January 2015 to December 2018, admitted in the Intensive Care Unit. The studied variables were age, sex, main diagnoses at admission; mechanical ventilation; invasive procedures; patient status at discharge and complications. The percentage was used to summarize the information, as well as the Chi square test to identify statistical association between the variables studied.

Results:

male sex predominated in 51.8%, and 50.3 % were aged 60 - 74 years old. 73.1% had a stay of less than seven days; cardiovascular diseases predominated. 26.3% of patients died, 58.5% received a bladder catheter implantation. 63.0% of patients required invasive mechanical ventilation. Admittance due to clinical diseases prevailed.

Conclusion:

male geriatric patients were more frequently admitted in intensive care; the 60-74 years-old age group prevailed; cardiovascular and respiratory clinical diseases were the most frequent; most of the dead patients needed invasive mechanical ventilation.

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