Abdominal pain is a common problem for people in all age groups, and leads to frequent visits to physicians’ offices, emergency rooms, and hospitals. Causes of abdominal pain are manifold, and can range from trivial to acutely life‐threatening. Evaluation of acute abdominal pain is one of the most challenging tasks a physician can face. In the elderly, diagnosis can be even more difficult because the causes, signs, and symptoms of abdominal pain are often different than in young and middle‐aged patients.
Abdominal pain may have many anatomic causes, from skin (herpes zoster or “shingles”), muscle (abdominal muscle strains), inflammation of the lining of the abdominal cavity (peritonitis), diseased internal organs in the abdomen (gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, pancreatitis, appendicitis, diverticulitis, cholecystitis), to the blood vessels that pass through the abdomen or supply the abdominal organs (abdominal aortic dissection and mesenteric artery thrombosis). Rarely, abdominal pain...
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Lewis LM, Banet GA, Blanda M, Hustey FM, Meldon SW, Gerson LW (2005) Etiology and clinical course of abdominal pain in senior patients: a prospective, multicenter study. J Gerontol A Biol Med Sci 60(8):1071–1076
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Packer, C.D. (2008). Abdominal Pain. In: Loue, S.J., Sajatovic, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Aging and Public Health. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-33754-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-33754-8_1
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