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Elderly patients with serious infections may present with nonspecific complaints and in some cases are treated with antibiotics based solely on these symptoms; however, the diagnostic utility of such complaints as a test for infection has not been established.
To explore this issue, researchers enrolled a convenience sample of 424 patients aged ≥65 years at a single academic emergency department (ED). Staff recorded patient-reported nonspecific symptoms comprising generalized weakness, lethargy, malaise, confusion, and altered mental status. In addition, patients completed a standardized confusion assessment tool. Bacterial infection was determined independently by two experts who reviewed all medical records, with a third expert adjudicatin…