Elderly And Burn Injuries: A Ten-Year Analysis of 612 Patients

Abstract

Background: With all the progress made in geriatric medicine, we expect to have a growing population of elderly soon. With burn injuries, as one of the most common unpredictable injuries to the elderly, it is essential to clarify the epidemiological pattern and factors related to worse outcomes in geriatric burn patients. We aimed to investigate burn characteristics in the elderly in Guilan province, IRAN, in ten years.Methods: This study conducted a retrospective analysis of burn patients aging 60yrs and over in Velayat Burn Center between 2010 and 2020. The data collected from the hospital information system included age, sex, marital state, occupation, residency, season and month of the incident, place of incident, total body surface area (TBSA), burn degree, cause of the burn, anatomical site of the injury, pre-injury morbidities, surgical managements, length of hospital stay and mortality.Results: Among 612 patients, the mean age was 72.20±8.94 years. The female to male ratio was 1.14:1 with a total of 53.3% female burn patients. 94.90% of patients lived with family members. 59.3% lived in urban areas. Most of the burn injuries happened during winter and summer. 82.5% happened indoors. The mean was 19.70±22.13%. The most common causes were flames (50.0%) and scalds (44.3%). The mean length of hospital stay (LOS) was 6.14±6.27 days. The overall mortality rate was 15%.Conclusion: We concluded that most burn injuries among the geriatric population happen indoors, during the first hours of the day, and on the first day of the week, making it essential to establish special prevention programs suiting these situations. On the other hand, with the increased life expectancy and the unpredictable nature of burn injuries, it is essential to identify risk factors and establish prevention programs for the elderly.

Analysis of Geriatric Burns in a Burn Center: Behavioral and Clinical Characteristics

“…Most of the injuries were scalding burns, followed by contact burns, flame burns, chemical burns, and electrical burns. This result differs from previous reports, many of which described flame burns as most common [9,12,14].…”

“…2 shows, the most heavily represented age group was 65∼69 years, followed by 70∼74 years. This aligns with a previous report [9,10,14]. In 45 cases, more than 2 weeks elapsed after burn injury before professional treatment was administered, and 29 of those patients started receiving treatment at least 1 month after injury.…”

“…The most commonly injured areas were the leg and foot, followed by the hand, arm, trunk, buttocks, and head/neck. This aligns with previous reports [9,10,14].…”