A common detail made doctors urgently call for: After the "positive" test, this matter is very important

As Omicron attacks, the pressure on the emergency rooms of hospitals has doubled.

Many people wonder: Will this wave of Omicron still attack the upper respiratory tract? Will it cause pneumonia or even "white lung"? In addition to the underlying disease, what are the factors that aggravate the condition? In this regard, the reporter interviewed Ai Jingwen, the attending physician of the infectious department of Shanghai Huashan Hospital.

Malnutrition is common among the elderly in the emergency room who are seriously ill

“Please treat the elderly as babies”

On the morning of December 23, there were more than 30 COVID-19 patients under observation in the emergency room of Huashan Hospital, all of whom were in critical condition. Dr. Ai Jingwen and her colleague Dr. Wang Jinyu examined the lung CT scans of these patients one by one and found about 10 cases with typical manifestations of viral pneumonia, including one patient with severe pneumonia (i.e., diffuse interstitial lesions).

"From a frontline clinical perspective, the probability of severe pneumonia caused by Omicron and the need for intubation treatment has been greatly reduced compared with the data of the original strain at the beginning of 2020 and the Alpha and Delta strains that were prevalent internationally in 2021 ," she said.

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But Ai Jingwen discovered a phenomenon:

In addition to the typical patient with severe viral pneumonia, there were a group of elderly people in their 80s and 90s infected with the new coronavirus lying around him. Although the lung CT showed that the imaging manifestations of viral pneumonia were not very severe, most of them had underlying diseases and their overall condition was very bad. They were all critically ill patients.

She patiently asked the family members about the details of the patient's illness one by one - "He couldn't eat anything after the fever" and "He has only drunk porridge for two days in a row." The family members described.

This caused her concern. After communicating with doctors Yang Shibo and Wang Yidu, who were in the emergency department, they discovered a common phenomenon: "We found that the seriously ill elderly people in the emergency room generally have malnutrition problems."

Ai Jingwen said, "When people have a fever, they really don't want to eat. Young people can get through the lack of nutrition within a few days, but the body of an old person is like a thatched house, which is already shaky. If the nutrition is not enough, the body will collapse all of a sudden. The family members are anxious, so they send them to the emergency room one after another."

But now emergency rooms are overwhelmed.

Chen Mingquan, director of the emergency department at Huashan Hospital, said that previously 30 ambulances came every day, but now the number has tripled to quadruple, to more than 90 to 120. A large number of emergency doctors have also fallen ill due to infection, and many emergency doctors have to work while sick.

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The waiting time for emergency treatment and rehydration will be longer than before. Many elderly people are hungry and weak, and their lungs may not be infected with the virus at this time, but as the disease progresses, it will be more dangerous if bacterial infection or other underlying diseases are superimposed .

After communicating with ICU doctors in other tertiary hospitals in Shanghai, Ai Jingwen learned that many of the elderly patients they received also had underlying diseases and bacterial infections, and often did not have adequate nutritional support.

Therefore, Dr. Ai Jingwen reminds us to be alert to the phenomenon that the elderly have a decreased resistance due to malnutrition in the early stage of infection. In home care, special attention should be paid to supplementing nutrition and fluids in the early stage of infection. On the contrary, energy intake during infection should be increased, which is one of the important means to help our body resist viruses.

Soft foods such as porridge and soup are easier to digest during illness, but you should also pay attention to the intake of other nutrients. The best way is to eat two eggs a day, or stewed egg custard that is easy to digest .

If you really can't eat, you can drink milk, protein powder or other nutritional preparations to help you take in energy. If you have underlying diseases, it is best to consult your doctor on how to increase nutritional supplements. During the illness, you should take food as medicine. Be sure to avoid infections caused by malnutrition that lead to critical and severe conditions.

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**The family should ensure the nutrition of the elderly, treat them like babies, and ensure that they have sufficient staple and complementary food. **At the same time, the elderly patients should be closely monitored. It would be better if the blood oxygen saturation can be monitored with a home-use pulse oximeter.

If there is no oxygen saturation instrument, you should pay attention to whether the elderly have become dull and whether they can complete some daily activities , such as walking and chatting. This can help determine whether the elderly's disease has worsened in the early stage. Once abnormalities are found, it will be more efficient to seek medical treatment in time. On the contrary, if the elderly go to the emergency room when their condition is stable, it will not be beneficial to their health.

Source: Qianjiang Evening News, People's Daily Central Kitchen-Dajiangdong Studio