Clinical Characteristics in Geriatric Trauma Victims between a Metropolitan City and Rural Areas

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Republic of Korea is now progressing to an aging society. Ones of rural areas in Korea are already aged societies. Others are post-aged societies in some areas. The urban areas in Korea is westernized, industrialized, and so crowded but the rural areas are still traditional and agricultural. The geriatric trauma victims in rural area have been neglected in that the rural medical environment including emergency medical service is not well-equipped and wellorganized. The purpose of this study is to evaluate clinical comparison of geriatric trauma victims between urban and rural area to prevent geriatric trauma and improve geriatric trauma outcomes. METHODS: In urban area, there was 382 geriatric trauma victims. And In rural area, there was 230 geriatric trauma victims. They was enrolled in this study from 1 Jan 2007 to 31 Dec 2007. We analyzed the medical data by using SPSS 12.0 and compared between urban and rural geriatric trauma victims in RTS (Revised trauma score), NISS (New injury severity score), vital sign, mentality, access, transportation, trauma time, mechanism of injury, and disposition. RESULTS: The mean age was 73.33+/-6.71 vs 73.00+/-6.13 (urban area geriatric trauma victims vs rural area geriatric trauma victims). The mean NISS was 7.18+/-8.66 vs 11.10 +/-11.10 (p-value=0.000). The mean RTS was 7.73+/-0.59 vs 7.67+/-0.75 (p-value=0.272). The factor of access, transportation, mechanism of injury, and disposition between urban and rural geriatric trauma victims showed statistical difference by chi-square test. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, rural area geriatric trauma victims were visited the emergency medical center with different method and route compared with the urban area geriatric trauma victims, showed the difference in mechanism of injury and results of medical treatment and thus needs to be concerned about difference of geriatric trauma between urban and rural area for prevention and better medical outcome.