Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore, Maryland
Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose
As the number of older adults seen in emergency departments rises, emergency medicine physicians are challenged with needing to evaluate patients presenting with non-specific “geriatric syndromes”. These syndromes include falls, delirium and worsening cognitive impairment to name a few. Caregivers, families and physicians search for underlying causes to the development of these syndromes and urinary tract infections are often blamed. But is it really a UTI? Or is that just an easy explanation? And what might we be missing? This discussion will focus on pearls and pitfalls in the diagnosis and management of UTIs in older adults by way of case-based presentations. Learners will come to recognize the morbidity in older adults associated with the consequence of reaching for the "geriatric easy button".
Learning Objectives:
Describe both subjective and objective findings of urinary tract infections in older adults.
List consequence associated with misdiagnosis of urinary tract infections in older adults
Define "search satisfying bias" and learn how to avoid succumbing to such a cognitive error when caring for older adults.
Describe both subjective and objective findings of urinary tract infections in older adults.