2 Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine KAHRAMANMARAŞ Introduction: The risk of geriatric individuals suffering trauma has increased due to the increasing elderly population and participation in more active social lives as a result of the improvement in health status. For rapid evaluation of trauma patients by emergency services, in many organ systems, multi detector computed tomography has been replaced with conventional graphics.
Materials and Methods: Computed tomography studies of geriatric patients who applied to the emergency service of a tertiary care hospital because of trauma between February 2013 and February 2014 were analyzed in terms of radiopathological findings associated with trauma. The results were examined in comparison with the literature.
Results: A total of 200 patients were enrolled, including 112 men and 88 women in the study. The mean age of the males was 75.5 and females was 75.9. Depending on the radiological findings, the number of affected anatomic regions as well as the type of trauma findings were noted. The most frequent types of trauma were falling (172 patients; 86%) and traffic accident (28 patients; 14%) respectively. The radiological findings were negative on half of (48%) the computed tomography examinations performed.
Conclusion: High rates of negative radiological findings cause cost and labor loss as well as unnecessary radiation exposure. Excessive labor in emergency services and physiciansÂ’ malpractice concerns may have promoted the increased use of radiological examinations. During management of geriatric trauma patients, decisions regarding computed tomography should depend on guidelines based on further studies that stratify patient risk and consider cost effectiveness.
Keywords : Trauma; Computed Tomography; Geriatric