2Balikligol Government Hospital, Ophthalmology, Sanliurfa, Turkey
3Suruc Government Hospital, Ophthalmology, Sanliurfa, Turkey DOI : 10.29400/tjgeri.2023.364 Introduction: Eye trauma is an important preventable cause of blindness. Decreased visual acuity of geriatric patients due to diseases such as cataracts, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and retinal vascular diseases also cause eye trauma.
Materials and Method: In this study, the files of 29 patients aged > 65 years who were treated for open-globe injuries at the eye diseases outpatient clinic of Akdeniz University (Antalya, Turkey) between January 2013 and November 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. Patient age, sex, location of injury, characteristics of injury, other accompanying findings, hospital admission time after injury (less than 12 h or > 12 h), and final visual acuity of the traumatized eye at admission and after treatment were recorded in addition to the visual acuity of the healthy eye at admission.
Results: The most common causes of injuries were tree branches (48.3%) and hard objects (31.0%). A total of 51.7% of eye injuries occurred at home and 48.3% occurred outdoors. Blunt and penetrating incisive injuries were observed in 65.5% and 34.5% of the patients, respectively. However, the most common injuries were penetration (75.9%) and perforations (20.7%). Injuries were mostly observed in zones I (58.6%) and III (31.0%). Visual acuity in the affected eye was less than 20/200 in 79.3% of the cases.
Conclusion: Precautions should be exercised to prevent eye trauma that reduces vision or results in legal blindness, especially in individuals over the age of 65 years. Furthermore, post-traumatic rehabilitation is very important.
Keywords : Geriatrics; Trauma; Blindness