Value of AIS-ISS for evaluation of trauma in the elderly

Objective To investigate the effect and significance of AIS-ISS in assessing injury severity and prognosis of aged trauma patients.Methods A retrospective study was done on data of 2 599 patients hospitalized over 24 hours from October 2009 to September 2012.There were 597 patients aged 60 years or over (aged group) and 2 002 patients aged below 60 years (non-aged group).Injury causes,ISS,complication incidence,emergency operation rate,and ICU treatment were compared between the two groups.Results Similar in causes of injury,the two groups were mainly injured from traffic accidents and falls on the ground or from height.ISS was (10.7 ± 7.8) points in aged group and (10.4 ± 8.3) points in non-aged group,with no significant difference (t =0.653,P ＞ 0.05).Incidence of major complications was higher in aged group than in non-aged group (P ＜ 0.01).Top three complications were pulmonary infection or atelectasis (4.36％),shock (4.19％),and urinary infection (3.52％).Lower emergency operation rate (21.44％ vs 30.57％,P ＜ 0.01),higher ICU treatment (75.71％ vs 36.26％,P ＜ 0.05),and higher mortality (3.85 ％ vs 2.25％,P ＜ 0.05) were observed in aged group when compared to non-aged group.Conclusions AIS-ISS should be carefully selected to evaluate injury severity and prognosis of the aged trauma patients.Early total care should be performed for the aged trauma patients even if AIS-ISS is relatively low. Key words: Wounds and injuries;  Injury severity score;  Aged