Quality of life and functional level in elderly patients surviving surgical intensive care

The elderly consume up to one third of health care resources and have become a target for cost reduction efforts. This study was performed to evaluate elderly survivors of surgical critical illness using perceived quality of life and activities of daily living as indicators of value of care.

Six hundred seventy-two patients age 70 years and older admitted to a surgical intensive care unit between October 1, 1992 and March 31, 1995 were studied. Intensive care unit and hospital length of stay, admission type and service, and severity of illness were integrated with preadmission and current activities of daily living in survivors. Perceived quality of life was assessed where obtainable from patient or direct proxy.

Activities of daily living were obtained on 342 (50.9%) and perceived quality of life evaluations on 240 (35.7%) of the initial study population. Median duration from admission to evaluation was 21 months. Activities of daily living scores decreased significantly overall from 4.75+/-0.72 (mean; +/- standard deviation) to 4.22+/-1.41, the proportion of completely independent patients fell from 84.9% to 72.0%, and the number of completely dependent patients rose from 0% to 3.8%. Perceived quality of life scores were not significantly different than scores in healthy patients living in the community. Using regression models, age, service, APACHE II score, and emergent operation or admission did not demonstrate relationships to changes in activities of daily living scores.

Although overall functional levels fell, rates of full dependency rose only slightly and perceived quality of life was high in a group of elderly patients surviving surgical intensive care. High hospital and postdischarge mortality should not motivate restriction of care for elderly patients requiring surgical intensive care given their high postillness subjective quality of life measures.