Caring for elderly tuberculosis patients On the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, a seventy-five-year-old father was brought to the ward. Asking the patient and his family about the onset of the disease, they couldn’t say anything, but said, “I’ve had a cold and cough for a month, and I’ve been taking medication and injections for a long time. The doctor asked, “Do you have a fever?” The family said, “Yes, no fever.” But when the temperature was measured at 38 degrees Celsius, the doctor asked, “Are you breathing?” They said, “I slept in bed all day, but I’m fine.” But when I checked, my mouth and lips were cyanotic, and my lungs were full of rhotic and filial sounds. He asked if his feet were swollen. The family then uncovered the blanket to see. The patient was diagnosed with “infectious tuberculosis combined with severe infection, respiratory failure, heart failure and malnutrition” after a thorough examination. After a month of treatment, the patient was discharged from the hospital in remission. During the Spring Festival, elderly TB patients like this account for more than 50% of the patients, most of whom are in serious condition and are not seen in time, with an average of about one month from the onset of symptoms to suspected TB referral to our hospital. The reasons for this are roughly twofold: 1. The elderly are unresponsive and have no subjective feelings about symptoms such as cough and low fever, or no obvious symptoms at all, making it difficult for their families to detect them in time; 2. Once the weather changes suddenly, fever and cough are easily misunderstood by family members as “recurrence of old illness” and treated by themselves according to “old experience” and delayed. Patients are referred from home to clinics, community and then to general hospitals, and finally to our hospital for consideration of tuberculosis, which mostly takes about half a month to a month. For the elderly, every day of delay makes the disease worse and can easily lead to death from consumption. Most of the patients admitted to the hospital have serious infections, are weak, and have very poor tolerance to anti-tuberculosis drugs, so they are prone to adverse drug reactions and treatment difficulties. Some patients are even eventually forced to give up treatment. Caring for the elderly, paying attention to elderly TB patients, starting from the side, starting from the family, timely detection, timely consultation, and providing doctors with a true and reliable medical history is the first step to successful treatment.