Has the age of patients in ICU changed?

[DuchessOfHastings123]

Over the last few months I have seen many comments on MN on how patients in this wave are much younger (under 50) compared to last year. Does anyone have any information on this?
I looked at the ICNARC reports for March 2020 and Feb 2021 and the age range of patients look very similar to me. First graph is feb 21 and second is march 20.
Just curious what other people's understanding/experience of this is

They look very similar to me too.
I think there is a certain demographic who like to tell people the bad news and use scare tactics to persuade people to follow the rules.
Now that they can't tell people they're killing granny (because granny is vaccinated) so let's turn to those who haven't yet been vaccinated and tell everyone the ICU is full if 50 year olds like you.

My friends DH is an ICU nurse.. He says they are full again and this time more younger patients.... Late working age... Towards first lockdown

There are more young people in ICU because often there aren’t enough beds and young people are prioritised.

@ChocOrange1

They look very similar to me too. I think there is a certain demographic who like to tell people the bad news and use scare tactics to persuade people to follow the rules. Now that they can't tell people they're killing granny (because granny is vaccinated) so let's turn to those who haven't yet been vaccinated and tell everyone the ICU is full if 50 year olds like you.

Exactly and it’s always hearsay as well, ‘My cousin says’ ‘My friends a funeral director’ ‘My aunts an icu nurse’

His opinion is the elderly are isolating so coming into less contact with disease

@happytoday73

My friends DH is an ICU nurse.. He says they are full again and this time more younger patients.... Late working age... Towards first lockdown

Yes this is what I mean really. Lots of comments like this but I can't find data that shows it

My pals working in local and icu (sorry!) say it’s mostly elderly men who would in normal years be in the cardiac wards. Middle aged women (40-55) are rare.

The slight shift is because there were more cases statistically speaking amongst younger age groups in the second wave, because they tend to be the front line and key workers, in health care, shops, cafés etc, who couldn't avoid the virus; whereas the elderly were sheltering at home and getting online food deliveries etc. This is reflected in the slightly different ratios.

I see data for 3 acute care hospitals.
There's been variations by month but December 2020 looks a lot like April 2020 for ages of those hospitalised.

I thought higher % of older people went to critical care in April because ventilation was tried more often; now it's not seen as a best treatment for many, especially the very frail or most elderly.

Management on non invasive ventilation means many younger patients won't be in icnarc data although non invasive ventikation is an escalation of treatment and a high dependency level of care.

@cocodomingo

Management on non invasive ventilation means many younger patients won't be in icnarc data although non invasive ventikation is an escalation of treatment and a high dependency level of care.

Ventilation * and more of these patients are looked after on wards not icu due to limited capacity

Bit difficult to tell. The shape of the distribution looks the same, but if you look at the 40-49 year old women for example, the proportion has nearly doubled.

Could do with actual numbers on the 2nd graph.

@cocodomingo

Management on non invasive ventilation means many younger patients won't be in icnarc data although non invasive ventikation is an escalation of treatment and a high dependency level of care.

Good point.

The thing is, healthcare workers are as prone to confirmation bias and to selective memory as anyone else - I don't think any of them are making up that they've seen people in their 20s/30s/40s in ICU and that it feels like that's a big percentage of who they're dealing with, but I do think it's possible that the patients that they find particularly shocking and upsetting loom larger in their perception.

Perhaps it they had a birthday while they were in there?

Where l work the covid ITU patients are 27 - 50yrs currently

I have wondered this too

My experience is that patients have been younger in this wave (mostly 50s-60s rather than the 60s-70s of wave 1, but also a generous smattering of 30 & 40 somethings and a few even younger). I’m not sure it’s just that we only remember the young ones either - there are some pretty memorable older folk passing though too. Where I work younger folk on non-invasive ventilation are more likely to be looked after in critical care where possible because intubation would be appropriate in most cases and that can be done more quickly if they’re already on the unit (this may not be the pattern throughout the country though where the capacity to do this will be limited by the number of patients already on ventilators). Patients for whom intubation may not be appropriate are more likely to be looked after on the normal wards. FWIW, I don’t think anyone’s trying to scare people into following the rules - maybe just trying to ensure that people who do chose not to play the game can’t say that no one warned them that young people aren’t all bullet proof.

By non invasive do you mean CPAP? My friends dad was on CPAP but was in the ICU. He is on a ventilator now. Late 50s

Slightly younger, possibly for several reasons.

A lot of susceptible older people were affected in the first wave, and into the summer. Recently it's been moving through the rest of the population, and much more of the population, because before lockdown 3, social distancing went to shit, and also because the now dominant mutated virus spreads easier.

A lot of elderly with covid sadly haven't even been sent to hospital this time round, and those who do end up there will rarely go to ICU or will be ventilated because it's too invasive and harsh on them. They go straight to end of life care if they're struggling.

I wonder whether there might be a difference between Sept-Nov and Dec-now too. Would be interesting to see those stats given the increase in the Kent strain since the end of November.

It’s entirely possible for the Sept to present data and ICU staff saying what they are seeing now is younger patients to both be true.

I assume it’s just because the elderly are isolating more whereas people in their 20s-60s are potentially still having to go to work etc and also may not be being as careful.

Whereas in the first wave it suddenly blew up and caught everybody off guard, and naturally it sweeper through the elderly causing more deaths in that age group.

*sweeped

I think you may not have the best data for comparison.
The later graph you have shows from September.
My understanding is that it's the new variant that has caused the change, which really started taking hold in November.
In order to really compare, I think you'd need to look at December as opposed to April.

I can't seem to find the december report online. This is january though