Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Crit Care Med. Sep 9, 2021; 10(5): 278-289
Published online Sep 9, 2021. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v10.i5.278
Elderly adults with COVID-19 admitted to intensive care unit: A narrative review
Aikaterini Gkoufa, Eleni Maneta, Georgios N Ntoumas, Vasiliki E Georgakopoulou, Athina Mantelou, Stelios Kokkoris, Christina Routsi
Aikaterini Gkoufa, Vasiliki E Georgakopoulou, First Department of Internal Medicine, Laiko General Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 11527, Greece
Eleni Maneta, Georgios N Ntoumas, Athina Mantelou, Stelios Kokkoris, Christina Routsi, First Department of Intensive Care, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 10676, Greece
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this work with literature review, drafting, critical revision and editing, and approved the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest associated with any of the senior author or other coauthors contributed their efforts in this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Aikaterini Gkoufa, MD, First Department of Internal Medicine, Laiko General Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Agiou Thoma 17, Athens 11527, Greece. katergouf@yahoo.gr
Received: March 8, 2021
Peer-review started: March 8, 2021
First decision: June 5, 2021
Revised: June 19, 2021
Accepted: August 23, 2021
Article in press: August 23, 2021
Published online: September 9, 2021
Processing time: 184 Days and 12.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) affects people of all ages; however, the risk for severe illness increases with age, with older adults being at highest risk. While many studies with regard to COVID-19 impact on elderly patients have been carried out, the information on characteristics and clinical outcome of critically ill elderly patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) due to COVID-19 is scarce. Studies exclusively designed for these patients are limited. Data derived from these studies and additionally from studies analyzing critically ill elderly patients as a subset of the whole ICU population with COVID-19, support that advanced age along with comorbidities are associated with worse clinical outcome.