Peer Reviewed
Emergency medicine
An elderly man with a life threatening infection
Abstract
It seems that patients are rarely simple straightforward cases nowadays, particularly the elderly. However, even the patient with complications and a background of comorbidities can have a very positive attitude and appear surprisingly well, like the patient with an infected hip replacement described here.
Key Points
As a GP doing regular shifts in the emergency department of the local hospital, you are often asked for your advice by the junior hospital staff. One day a new intern asked politely if you could help him with a patient who had been sent in by the GP with a possible infected hip replacement four months after a revision. Over the last week, the 78-year-old retired dentist had noted fevers and increasing stiffness of his hip, and had been unable to attend his rehabilitation appointment.
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