Number 1 leading cause of death in elderly patients.

Sepsis is a serious condition resulting from the presence of harmful microorganisms in the blood that can result from an infection anywhere in the body, such as pneumonia, influenza, or urinary tract infections. Worldwide, one-third of people who develop Sepsis die. Many who do survive are left with life-changing effects, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic pain and fatigue, organ dysfunction (organs don’t work properly) and/or amputations.
Basically sepsis is an serious infection. Infections can also happen through infected teeth or skin sores, either from a simple skin tear because the skin may be dry or fragile, or a pressure sore from sitting in a wheelchair or lying in bed(bedsore). There are many ways an infection can take hold.

It’s not always easy to spot infections among older people. For example, symptoms of a UTI(Urinary Tract infection) usually include the need to urinate frequently, a sense of urgency (you need to urinate immediately), not feeling as if you’ve emptied your bladder completely, burning or pain while urinating, and cloudy and foul smelling urine. For many seniors though, the first sign of a UTI is a CHANGE in their MENTAL status – they become confused or disoriented. So the infection could be present for quite a while before it is noticed. The same could happen with other infections, like pneumonia.In elderly,pneumonia does not present typically always with a cough and fever.