The heat in the South has caused many elderly people to fall ill. Photo: Van Son

On February 29, at the Outpatient Department of Thong Nhat Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, many elderly patients lined up waiting for their turn. Sitting on a bench in front of the patient's room, Mr. NTH (78 years old, living in Tan Binh District) occasionally held his chest and coughed in bouts. He said: "The heat has caused me to have respiratory illness for a week now. A few days ago, I went to the clinic and the doctor gave me medicine to send home for outpatient treatment. After 3 days of taking the medicine, my illness improved but I still coughed a lot, so I came back today to get further support from the doctor."

Ms. NPL (70 years old, residing in District 3) also came to Thong Nhat Hospital with difficulty breathing, headache, and dizziness. After examination, Dr. Truong Quang Anh Vu, Head of the Examination Department, said that the patient had underlying diseases, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, high blood pressure, and myocardial ischemia. In hot weather, the patient could not maintain good health, so she fell into bronchitis. To avoid the disease from progressing, the patient was hospitalized for treatment.

According to Dr. Vu, when the weather changes to the hot season, the elderly often become seriously ill and go to the hospital for examination and treatment more often. Since the beginning of the hot season (before Tet until now), the number of patients coming to Thong Nhat Hospital has increased by more than 20%. If on average before Tet, the hospital received about 2,000 patients per day, now the number of cases has increased to about 2,500 people, of which about 150 cases have been hospitalized.

Respiratory, ear, nose and throat, and cardiovascular diseases are a group of diseases directly related to hot weather, and have increased significantly. In addition, the elderly often have many underlying diseases, so when the weather changes, they often become more severe. In particular, the number of cases of uncontrolled high blood pressure, myocardial infarction, and life-threatening stroke requiring hospitalization is on the rise in hot weather.

Dr. Vu recommends that in hot weather, the elderly need to pay more attention to their health, and relatives need to support care. Elderly patients with underlying diseases need to comply with treatment, take full medication; need to eat well, drink plenty of water, supplement minerals, vitamins, eat lots of green vegetables. The elderly need to limit going out during hot weather.

If you have to go out, wear long-sleeved, airy clothes to maintain a stable body temperature and avoid exposing your skin directly to sunlight. Overuse of air conditioning or setting the room temperature too low compared to the outside temperature can lead to the risk of heat stroke, because the body cannot respond promptly to changes in temperature at too large an amplitude.

Van Son