Pattern of trauma in elderly patients seen at the trauma centre of national hospital Abuja, Nigeria

Introduction: The global population is aging, creating challenges for health systems. The mean age of patients with major trauma has increased over time, posing some challenges for trauma system designs. Elderly trauma patients are said to have higher mortality rates and longer hospital and intensive care unit stays. This study is aimed at assessing the pattern of injuries in elderly population in a dedicated trauma centre of a developing economy. Methods: This is a retrospective study of all patients aged 60 years and above seen in the trauma centre of a West African tertiary hospital over a three year period from January 2017 to December 2019. Relevant parameters including Sociodemographic data, injury pattern and injury scores were derived from the trauma registry. Data analysis was done using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 24. Results were presented using tables and a figure. Results: A total of 183 patients aged 60 years and above were enrolled out of 4549 general trauma patients, representing 4% of the trauma patient population seen. Male to female ratio was 2.3 with the mean age of 65 ± 6.3. The most frequent mechanisms of injury were motor vehicular crash (MVC) (48.4%), followed by falls (16.5%). More proportion of females (21.8%) were significantly found to suffer falls compared to their males (14.2%) counterparts (p < 0.05). Traumatic brain injury was the commonest diagnosis accounting for 24.3% of cases. The predominant revised trauma scores (RTS) and injury severity scores (ISS) were 12 and 1–15 respectively, with overall mortality of 6.1%. Conclusion: The proportion of elderly trauma patients studied in this centre is low. MVC is still the leading mechanism of injury in our elderly trauma population. The mortality rate is however low in this study, in line with the low trauma and severity scores. Preventive measures for MVC should be strongly encouraged to reduce the incidence of elderly trauma patients in this part of the world.