But a research team led by a trauma surgeon at Stanford (CA) University, found that elderly patients are often undertriaged, meaning they are not even taken to a trauma center, even though their injuries are severe enough to warrant being seen in those facilities.
"We're not sure why this is happening, but there is clearly a bias," said lead study author Kristan L. Staudenmayer, MD, MS, FACS, assistant professor of surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif. "They could be walking through the living room, trip, and fall. That [event] may not hurt a young person, but it can severely injure an elderly person, especially if that elderly person is frail and has a lot of other health conditions."
Without considering underlying health conditions, triage teams and first responders may underestimate how badly injured elderly patients are. "Even if we know they have heart disease or another condition, that's not sufficient to tell us how strong or weak they are," Dr. Staudenmayer adds. "I know plenty of people withdiabetes who look pretty healthy."