Table 1.
Clinical characteristics and demographics of a population of elderly patients admitted to a Department of Rehabilitation and Aged Care
| Variablea | N= 2735 |
|---|---|
| Age, years | 80 (74–85) |
| Female, n (%) | 1.975 (71%) |
| Barthel index pre-hospital admissionb | 94 (78–100) |
| Barthel index at rehabilitation admission | 44 (26–62) |
| Barthel index at rehabilitation discharge | 82 (57–94) |
| Delta Barthel indexc | 40 (24–56) |
| Cumulative illness rating score severity indexd | 1.62 (1.46–1.84) |
| Number of drugs at rehabilitation admission | 5 (4–7) |
| Albumin at rehabilitation admission, mg/dl | 3.1 (2.8–3.3) |
| Delirium at rehabilitation admission, n (%) | 500 (18%) |
| Mini Mental State Examination at rehabilitation admission | 23 (17–27) |
| Admission diagnoses to the in-hospital rehabilitation setting, n (%) | |
| - Orthopedic | 1204 (44%) |
| - Neurologic | 422 (16%) |
| - Respiratory | 457 (17%) |
| - Cardiologic | 281 (10%) |
| - Gait disturbances | 255 (9%) |
| - Other | 116 (4%) |
| Length of stay acute hospital | 8 (6–13) |
| Length of stay rehabilitation setting | 24 (20–34) |
| Rehospitalization within 30 days, n (%) | 98 (4%) |
Median and interquartile range, unless otherwise noted.
Barthel index a month before the index admission to the acute hospital evaluated through surrogate interview
Delta Barthel index was calculated as the difference of Barthel Index pre-hospital admission (i.e., Barthel index a month before the index acute hospital admission) and the Barthel Index at rehabilitation admission.
Cumulative illness rating score (CIRS) is a screening tool for comorbidity, assessing the chronic medical illness burden while taking into account the severity of chronic diseases; the score for each of the 14 items can range from 1 (absence of pathology) to 5 (maximum level of severity of the disease). The CIRS severity index is the result of the average score of the first 13 items.