International Journal of Clinical Case Reports, 2025, Vol.15, No.4, 159-170 http://medscipublisher.com/index.php/ijccr 161 2012; Quinones et al., 2016). These conditions are influenced by sociodemographic and lifestyle factors and may also vary by gender. Women are more prone to neurological and osteoarticular diseases, while men are more likely to suffer from respiratory and cancer-related diseases (Table 1) (Almagro et al., 2020; Lu et al., 2021). Table 1 Differences by gender in the studied population (Adopted from Lu et al., 2021) Quantitative variables Men (mean±SD) Women (mean±SD) Total (mean±SD) Men (median; IQR) Women (median; IQR) Total (median; IQR) P Age 80.5(10.4) 84.2(8.8) 82.4(9.8) 83(75-87) 85.5(80-89) 84(79-89) <0.0001 Barthel 57.9(34.5) 41.1(32.2) 49.4(34.4) 60(25-90) 40(10-65) 50(15-80) <0.0001 Pfeiffer 3.1(3.7) 5.3(6.6) 4.2(5.5) 1(0-6) 5.3(6.6) 2(0-9) <0.0001 Mini Mental Cognitive Examination 25.5(9.5) 18.3(11.6) 21.7(11.2) 25(20-32) 18.3(10-30) 21.7(14.8-32) 0.001 Charlson age-adjusted 8.7(2.7) 8.4(2.3) 8.6(2.5) 9(7-10) 8(7-10) 8(7-10) 0.1 Charlson 5.4(4.3) 4.5(2.1) 4.9(3.4) 5(3-7) 4(3-6)(2.1) 4(3-6) 0.002 PROFUND 11(6.3) 13.4(5.9) 12.2(6.2) 11.5(6-15) 15(9-18) 12(8-18) <0.0001 Number domiciliary drugs 8.8(4) 9.2(3.7) 11(6.3) 8(6-12) 9(7-12) 9(6-12) 0.7 Hospital stay (days) 10.7(6.8) 11.5(10.4) 11.1(8.8) 9(6-14) 8(6-13) 9(6-13) 0.7 Number of hospitalizations# 2.6(2.7) 2.1(2.4) 2.3(2.5) 2(0-4) 1(0-3) 2(0-4) 0.02 Qualitative variables number(%) number(%) number(%) Coexistence Alone 58(14.1%) 57(13.3%) 115(13.7%) 0.01 Family 286(69.4%) 269(62.9%) 555(66.1%) Profesioneal caregiver or nursing home 63(15.3%) 101(23.6%) 164(19.5%) Others 5(1.2%) 1(0.2%) 6(0.7%) Delirium 190(46%) 269(63%) 464(55%) <0.0001 Dysphagia 190(45%) 241(58%) 430(51%) 0.002 Comorbity_scale Hearth failure 224(54%) 266(62.1%) 490(58.1%) 0.01 Ischemic heart disease 121(29.2%) 77(18%) 198(23.5) <0.0001 Autoinmune 31(7.5%) 52(12.1%) 83(9.8%) 0.01 Chronic Kidney Dis. 195(47%) 178(41.6%) 373(44.2%) 0.06 Chronic Respiratory Dis. 227(54.7%) 181(42.3%) 408(48.4%) <0.0001 Inflamatory bowel Dis. 9(2.2%) 14(3.3%) 23(2.7%) 0.2 Chronic Liver Dis. 29(7%) 20(4.7%) 49(5.8%) 0.1 Cerebrovascular 99(23.9%) 93(21.7%) 192(22.8%) 0.3 Motor Neurological Dis. 49(11.8%) 51(11.9%) 100(11.9%) 0.5 Dementia 141(34%) 198(46.3%) 339(40.2%) <0.0001 Peripheral artery Dis. 78(18.8%) 30(7%) 108(12.8%) <0.0001 Diabetes 114(27.5%) 114(26.6%) 228(27%) 0.04 Chronic anemia 63(15.2%) 77(18%) 140(16.6%) 0.2 Neoplasm 70(16.9%) 32(7.5%) 102(12.1%) 0.0001 Chronic osteoarticular Dis. 41(9.9%) 128(29.9%) 169(20%) 0.0001 Total comorbidity scale 3.6(1.5) 3.5(1.4) 3.5(1.5) 3.6(2-5) 3.5(2-4) 3.5(2-5) 0.7 Table caption: Distribution (Kolmogorov-Smirnoff). Analyses performed with Mann-Whitney U test; #Number of hospitalizations in the previous year Using multiple medications simultaneously is a natural outcome of suffering from several chronic diseases, as treating several chronic diseases often requires the use of several drugs at once. On average, elderly patients with multiple diseases who are hospitalized need to take more than five kinds of medicine. More than half of the patients take more than five drugs, which brings more risks of drug interaction and side effects (Gao et al., 2024; Tran et al., 2025). This indicates that medication arrangements need to be carefully made based on the specific illness conditions of each patient.
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