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Acute Abdominal Pain in the Elderly

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Geriatric Diseases

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Abstract

Abdominal pain can be due to many causes, and the underlying pathology could be due to an infection, mechanical obstruction, biliary disease, malignancy and gastrointestinal ischaemia. The prevalence of acute abdominal pain increases with advancing age. Among the elderly presenting to the emergency department, approximately 50% were hospitalized and 30–40% eventually had surgery. This review provides an overview of acute abdominal pain in the elderly, prevalence, causes and management.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Sydney, Westmead Clinical School, Westmead, NSW, Australia

    Nages Nagaratnam & Kujan Nagaratnam

  2. Rehabilitation and Aged Care Service, Blacktown-Mt Druitt Hospital, Mount Druitt, NSW, Australia

    Gary Cheuk

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  1. Nages Nagaratnam
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  2. Kujan Nagaratnam
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  3. Gary Cheuk
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Nagaratnam, N., Nagaratnam, K., Cheuk, G. (2018). Acute Abdominal Pain in the Elderly. In: Geriatric Diseases. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33434-9_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33434-9_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-33433-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-33434-9

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