Skeletal injury patterns in older females.
Injury patterns in elderly patients are different from those in younger patients. With recent emphasis on osteoporosis and its effects, we looked at a continuous series of patients from one Level 1 trauma center regarding injury patterns by gender. For all patients older than 65 years, and including all mechanisms, older women were more likely to sustain forearm and wrist fractures than were older men. For the individual mechanism of motor vehicle collision there was a significant increase in the extremity Abbreviated Injury Scores in older women compared with older men. Similarly, older women were more likely to sustain lower leg fractures and distal upper extremity fractures than were older men. This raises the possibility that increased bone loss, as seen in older women, may be reflected in the injury patterns they sustained given the same mechanism. More work is warranted in this region to potentially diminish these effects.
Tornetta
Paul
P
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Boston University Medical Center, Boston, MA 02118, USA. ptornetta@pol.net
Hirsch
Erwin F
EF
Howard
Robert
R
McConnell
Timothy
T
Ross
Eric
E
D000058:Accidental Falls; D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001134:Arm Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005593:Fracture Fixation, Internal / Q000379:methods; D017102:Fracture Healing / Q000502:physiology; D050723:Fractures, Bone / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D015601:Injury Severity Score; D007869:Leg Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015663:Osteoporosis, Postmenopausal / Q000150:complications; D015995:Prevalence; D012016:Reference Values; D012042:Registries; D018570:Risk Assessment; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014193:Trauma Centers