Clinicopathological Characteristics of Traumatic Head Injury in Juvenile, Middle-Aged and Elderly Individuals

Abstract

BackgroundTraumatic head injury is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. How clinicopathological features differ by age remains unclear. This epidemiological study analyzed the clinicopathological features of patients with head injury belonging to 3 age groups.Material/MethodsData of patients with traumatic head injury were obtained from the Department of Cerebral Surgery of the Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University and the Guizhou Provincial People’s Hospital in 2011–2015. Their clinicopathological parameters were assessed. The patients were divided into 3 age groups: elderly (≥65 years), middle-aged (18–64 years), and juvenile (≤17 years) individuals.ResultsAmong 3356 hospitalizations for traumatic head injury (2573 males and 783 females, 654 died (19.49%), the highest and lowest mortality rates were in the elderly and juvenile groups, respectively. Fall was the most common cause in juvenile and elderly individuals (32.79% and 43.95%, respectively), while traffic injury was most common in the elderly group (35.08%). The manners of injury differed considerably among the 3 age groups. Scalp injury, skull fracture, intracranial hematoma, and cerebral injury were the most common mechanisms in juvenile (67.32%), middle-aged (63.50%), elderly (69.56%) and middle-aged (90.44%) individuals, respectively. Scalp injury and skull fracture types differed among the groups. Epidural, subdural, and intracerebral hematomas were most common in juvenile, middle-aged, and elderly individuals, respectively. Cerebral contusion showed the highest frequency in the 3 groups, and concussion the lowest.ConclusionsPatients with traumatic HI show remarkable differences in clinicopathological features among juvenile, middle-aged, and elderly individuals.

Traumatic brain injury in the elderly after a skiing accident: A retrospective cohort study in a level 1 emergency department in Switzerland

“…Younger patients may have more other injury patterns such as diffuse axonal injuries (shearing injuries), which could have been underdetected in our analysis due to their low specificity in CT scans [ 21 ]. Other studies evaluating older patients (≥65 years) after acute trauma showed a frequency for aSDH of 28.9–45.5% compared to 21.2% in our study [ 10 , 15 ]. The lower frequency of aSDH in our study could be related to different factors such as the lower age threshold for our elderly group (55 years) and the common use of helmets while skiing nowadays.…”

“…In addition, some of the recent international data suggest a poorer outcome after head trauma in the elderly population compared to younger age groups [ 14 , 15 ]. Nevertheless, some data also show a positive outcome trend in the elderly with head trauma after receiving modern intensive care treatment [ 16 ].…”

Traumatic Epidural and Subdural Hematoma: Epidemiology, Outcome, and Dating

“…In the adult population accessing an Emergency Department (ED) for a traumatic brain injury, more cases of SDHs than EDHs are shown in elderly patients [ 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ]. Unlike the general adult population, the percentage of elderly men is comparable to that of women [ 24 , 26 , 32 , 33 , 40 , 43 , 46 ] in the case of both SDHs and EDHs.…”

Assessment of Pattern and Outcome of Traumatic Head Injuries in Menoufia University Hospital Over One Year

“…Head injuries (HI) are major threat to public health; they are significant risk factors for mortality in all age groups of population around the world (Wang et al, 2018). Traumatic injuries are predicted to be among the top twenty leading causes of deaths worldwide by 2030 (Mahran et al, 2013).…”