Citation

Namgung M, Kim K, Lee DH, Yune HY, Wee JH, Kim DH, Kim EC, Lim JY. Emerg. Med. Int. 2019; 2019: e7803184.

Affiliation

Department of Emergency Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, Seoul 065691, Republic of Korea.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Hindawi Publishing)

DOI

10.1155/2019/7803184

PMID

31275655

PMCID

PMC6582857

Abstract

The objective of this retrospective multicenter study was to investigate the mechanism and characteristics of trauma experienced by patients aged ≥65 years who were transferred from a long-term care hospital to one of five university hospital emergency departments. Of 255,543 patients seen in one of the five emergency departments, 79 were transferred from a long-term care hospital because of trauma. The most common trauma mechanism was slipping down, with 33 (58.9%) patients, followed by falling from a bed (17.9%), striking an object such as a wall or corner (10.7%), overextending a joint (8.9%), and unknown mechanisms (3.6%). Many cases of slip (39.4%) occurred in relation to the bathroom. Comparing slip and fall from a bed, we found more hip fractures (95.2%) because of slipping down than falling from a bed (57.1%); traumatic brain injury only occurred in slip cases. These traumas cause significant morbidity in elderly patients; therefore, we sought to identify strategies that prevent slip in long-term care hospitals.

Language: en