What are the common symptoms and manifestations when hypoglycemia occurs in the elderly? The American Diabetes Association Hypoglycemia Working Group defines hypoglycemia in elderly diabetic patients as blood glucose below 3.9mmol/L and classifies it into five categories: 1. Severe hypoglycemia: requiring assistance from others; 2. Definite symptomatic hypoglycemia: the presence of typical hypoglycemic symptoms and blood glucose below 3.9mmol/L; 3. Asymptomatic hypoglycemia: venous blood glucose below 3.9mmol/L, but without typical hypoglycemia; 4. Possible symptomatic hypoglycemia: the presence of typical hypoglycemia performance, but no blood glucose monitoring is possible symptomatic hypoglycemia; 5. The presence of hypoglycemia symptoms: relative hypoglycemia with venous blood glucose higher than 3.9mmol/L. When hypoglycemia occurs, the human body may show various symptoms, and the elderly patients have poor β-cell function, multi-organ function recession and decreased regulation ability, so they are more likely to have hypoglycemia, and the hypoglycemia of the elderly has its unique clinical manifestations, as follows: Typical clinical manifestations: mainly sympathetic excitation symptoms, manifested as sweating, trembling, palpitation, nervousness, anxiety, weakness, pale face, hunger, salivation Limb tremors, and mildly elevated systolic blood pressure.
However, because the elderly often have autonomic neuropathy and autonomic failure related to hypoglycemia, when hypoglycemia occurs in elderly patients, they often lack the above sympathetic nerve excitation symptoms. Therefore, it is not easy for elderly patients to detect hypoglycemia, and it is easy to delay the consultation time, which leads to the damage of brain cell function. Atypical clinical manifestations: Elderly diabetic patients often develop hypoglycemic encephalopathy, mainly central nervous dysfunction, which can be manifested as slow thinking, mental incompetence, dizziness, headache, anxiety, blurred vision, unsteady gait, blurred consciousness, convulsion, hemiplegia, tetraplegia, hallucinations, crying, and even mania, delirium, coma, shock and death.