Frailty And Length Of Stay In Older Adults With Blunt Injury In A National Multicentre Prospective Cohort Study

Background Patients suffering moderate or severe injury after low falls have higher readmission and long-term mortality rates compared to patients injured by high-velocity mechanisms such as motor vehicle accidents. We hypothesize that this is due to higher pre-injury frailty in low-fall patients, and present baseline patient and frailty demographics of a prospective cohort of moderate and severely injured older patients. Our second hypothesis was that frailty was associated with longer length of stay (LOS) at index admission.Methods This is a prospective, nation-wide, multi-center cohort study of Singaporean residents aged >= 55 years admitted for >= 48 hours after blunt injury with an injury severity score or new injury severity score >= 10, or an Organ Injury Scale >= 3, in public hospitals from 2016-2018. Demographics, mechanism of injury and frailty were recorded and analysed by Chi-square, or Kruskal-Wallis as appropriate.Results 218 participants met criteria and survived the index admission. Low fall patients had the highest proportion of frailty (44, 27.3%), followed by higher level fallers (3, 21.4%) and motor vehicle accidents (1, 2.3%) (p < .01). Injury severity, extreme age, and surgery were independently associated with longer LOS. Frail patients were paradoxically noted to have shorter LOS (p < .05).Conclusion Patients sustaining moderate or severe injury after low falls are more likely to be frail compared to patients injured after higher-velocity mechanisms. However, this did not translate into longer adjusted LOS in hospital at index admission.