Diabetes in the Elderly: Retrospective Study

Overview

Diabetes is highly prevalent in the elderly, afflicting about 20% of older adults aged 65-75 years and 40% of adults \>80years of age. Management of hyperglycemia is challenging in the geriatric population in long-term facilities. Numerous factors place hospitalized patients at increased risk for hyperglycemia including aging, sedentary life, stress of medical and surgical comorbidities, and changes in antidiabetic regimen. In addition, elderly patients often experience changes in their nutritional intake and organ dysfunction which increase the risk of hypoglycemic events. There are only a few retrospective studies in elderly patients analyzing quality of diabetes care and glycemic control adjusted for medications and presence of co-morbidities in long-term care facilities. In addition, no randomized controlled trials have demonstrated benefits of glycemic control on clinical outcome, quality of life, and rate of acute metabolic complications (hyperglycemia and hypoglycemic events) in long-term care facilities.

The investigators will conduct a retrospective study to determine the prevalence of diabetes, comprehensively describe the management of diabetes, and to evaluate the impact of quality of care and glycemic control on clinical outcome in elderly subjects admitted to two large long-term care facilities: Grady Health System (GHS) and Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC) in Atlanta, Georgia between 1/01/08 to 12/31/08.

Conditions

Eligibility