[Prognostic indices for older adults during the year following hospitalization in an acute medical ward: An update].

CONTEXT: As population grow older, chronic diseases are more prevalent. It leads to an increase of hospitalization for acute decompensation, sometimes iterative. Management of these patients is not always clear, and care provided is not always proportional to life expectancy. Making decisions in acute situations is not easy.

OBJECTIVE: This review aims to list and describe mortality scores within a year following hospitalization of patients of 65 years or older.

SOURCES: Following keywords were searched in title and abstract of articles via an advanced search in PudMed, and by searching Mesh terms: "aged", "aged, 80 and over", "mortality", "prognosis", "hospitalized", "models, statistical", "acute geriatric ward", "frailty", "outcome".

STUDIES SELECTION: Studies published in English between 1985 and 2015 were selected. Last article was published in June 2015. Articles that described prognostic factors of mortality without a scoring system were excluded. Articles that focus either on patients in the Emergency Department and in Intensive Care Unit, or living in institution were excluded.

RESULTS: Twenty-two scores are described in 17 articles. These scores use items that refer to functional status, comorbidities, cognitive status and frailty. Scores of mortality 3 or 6 months after hospitalization are not discriminative. Few of the 1-year mortality prognostic score are discriminative with AUC≥0.7.

LIMITS: This review is not systematic.

CONCLUSION: Practical use of these scores might help management of these patients, in order to initiate appropriate reflexion and palliative care if necessary.