Abstract
Purpose
Drowning is one of the major causes of traumatic death. The impact of drowning in
the elderly and patients who were not elderly will be different because of physiological
differences. We wanted to analyze the clinical differences such as mortality, incidence
rate of complications, degree of hypothermia and rate of cardiac arrest between elderly
and adult drowning patients.
Methods
This study included drowning patients over 18 years old who came to an emergency department
(ED) located on a riverside from September 1997 to July 2016. Patients over the age
of 65 years were classified as elderly, while those under the age of 65 years were
classified as adults. Demographic data and clinical outcomes were surveyed.
Results
A total of 611 patients were included in this study. Sixty-one patients (9.9%) were
elderly, and 550 patients (90.1%) were adults. There were 17 elderly patients (15.8%)
and 87 adult patients (27.9%) who had cardiac arrest at the time of ED arrival (p = 0.017).
The rate of body temperatures < 34 °C was higher in elderly patients than that in
adult patients (27.9% vs 17.5%, respectively, p = 0.025). The rates of hospitalization
in the intensive care unit (ICU) and mortality were higher in elderly group (23% vs.
15.1%, respectively, p = 0.01; 37.7% vs 21.8%, respectively, p = 0.01). There was
no significant difference in suicidal intent between the elderly and adult patient
groups (82.0% vs 78.9%, respectively, p = 0.421).
Conclusions
Elderly drowning patients accounted for approximately 1/10 of all drowning cases and
were more likely to experience a cardiac arrest, hypothermia, mortality, and ICU admission.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: August 29, 2018
Accepted:
August 27,
2018
Received in revised form:
August 25,
2018
Received:
December 13,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Published by Elsevier Inc.
