Citation

Lund KD, Nordentoft EL. Proc. IRCOBI 1977; 5: 120-127.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1977, International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

With the purpose of elucidating some of the characteristics of the elderly's accidents compared to children and younger people's accidents we have gone through the material, which has been collected by the Accident Analysis Group at the Odense University Hospital in the four year period of April 1st, 1972 to April 1st, 1976. From this material we selected the age group 65-99 years and for comparison the groups 7-14 years and 25-30 years inclusively. The methodology of material collection has been described earlier. The total material of traffic accidents comprises 17.000 patients by January 1st, 1977. Through the hospital administration information has been gathered as to the population stock and its age distribution within the hospital's area of admission. With regard to traffic accidents this area can be described with a fairly good approximation.

The analysis has shown, that traffic accidents of the elderly mainly take place during day hours. 2/3 of the injuries are inflicted in unprotected situations. The lesions of the elderly are more serious than those of the younger persons. When we look at patients with fractures, it appears that the elderly are subject to almost twice as many fractures as are the younger persons. This fragility does not seem to be localized to any specific region but can be located in the arms, the legs, the head and in the bones of the body as well.

Geographically the accidents of the elderly-seem to be more concentrated, and thus presumably easier to approach when it comes to prevention through improvements in the traffic environment. The accident distribution over the day seems to follow the elderly's exposition rather than the traffic intensity.

Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Impact Trauma. Berlin, Germany. 7,8,9 September 1977

Language: en