title: Acute trauma and multiple injuries in the elderly population.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Traumatic injuries in the rapidly growing elderly population pose a significant challenge to the healthcare community. These injuries are associated with significant morbidity and mortality, and as a result cause a financial burden on the medical system. Although normal decline in physiologic reserve can provide some explanation for these poor outcomes, there is significant room for improvement. This review will summarize recent literature around the evaluation and management of elderly trauma patients with a particular focus on those with hip fractures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  It is becoming increasingly evident that customized evaluation and management of elderly trauma patients is a key factor in improving outcomes. Geriatric-specific triage and assessment criteria have been developed and initial results are encouraging. In particular, the use of frailty as an assessment tool in these patients has been shown to be an independent predictor of outcomes. Further, assessment of these tools in elderly trauma patients with hip fractures has provided a wealth of information about their use and limitations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Differentiated, geriatric-specific triaging, assessment and treatment pathways in the care of elderly trauma patients will ultimately lead to improvements in outcomes. These improvements have already started to be seen in the realm of orthogeriatrics.
authors: Department of Anesthesiology, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors: Maurice F
authors: MF
authors: Joyce
authors: Anupriya
authors: A
authors: Gupta
authors: Ruben J
authors: RJ
authors: Azocar
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016330:Frail Elderly; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D009104:Multiple Trauma / Q000628:therapy*; D014218:Triage; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000628:therapy*