Unsuspected serious abdominal trauma after falls among community-dwelling older adults.

BACKGROUND

In elderly community-dwelling patients who experience ground-level falls, fractures or brain injury are the major concern. Serious abdominal injury is seldom contemplated.

AIM: Identify all such patients presenting after a simple fall and admitted with serious blunt abdominal trauma to a single academic medical centre.

DESIGN

Retrospective chart analysis.

METHOD: All patients with both diagnoses aged 65 years or more admitted over 1 year to the department of medicine, geriatrics, surgery or urology were identified.

RESULTS

Out of 546 patients screened, three cases of ground-level falls leading to splenic rupture, isolated gallbladder rupture with gallstone ileus and perinephric hematoma were found (0.55%) and are reported.

CONCLUSIONS

Falls in elderly patients are exceedingly common mandating recognition of even rare complications. Physicians should be more aware of the possibility of occult and serious consequences of blunt abdominal trauma after falls among older adults, albeit rare.