Tag Archives: prevention

Best of EAST #5: Elderly Falls And Vision Problems

Elderly falls have become a huge problem. There isn’t a night that goes by that we don’t admit at least two or three at our trauma center. There are at least a dozen factors that have been identified that are associated with falls, including:

  • Medications
  • Bone and muscle loss
  • Underlying medical conditions
  • Gait problems
  • Throw rugs and other environmental hazards
  • Visual problems

And many more! But let’s focus on that last one. Vision problems can be due to primary disease, such as glaucoma, or from lack of adequate correction of those problems, such as decreased visual acuity.

The group at West Virginia University is presenting a prevention paper next week. They prospectively studied patients older than 60 years who were admitted to their trauma service over a one year period. They wanted to determine the prevalence of undertreated or undiagnosed eye disease in the population, and to find out if using readily available screening tests could detect this and assist in prevention efforts.

A dilated ophthalmic exam was performed and used as the gold standard. The results were compared to a screening app administered by a trauma provider via an iPad (the eyeTests Easy app). This app can be used to test for visual acuity, macular degeneration, near vision, and astigmatism.

Here are the factoids:

  • A total of 96 patients were enrolled, with an average age of 75 and a predominant mechanism of fall in 79%
  • Significant abnormal vision was undiagnosed in 39% of patients and undertreated in 14%
  • The trauma provider app exam was 94% sensitive and 92% specific
  • Correlation was best on pupil exam (86%), visual fields (58%), and the macular degeneration test (52%)
  • A combination of visual fields and the Amsler grid were associated with significant abnormal vision

The authors concluded that unrecognized visual problems are common, and are present in 53% of their elderly trauma admissions. They also state the the trauma provider exam can identify abnormalities in “most cases” and can identify those who should be screened by an ophthalmologist.

My comments: This is an interesting study that compares a simple, app-based screen with a more sophisticated ophthalmology exam. However, it is not clear what “significant abnormal vision (SAV)” really is. The sensitivity and specificity numbers cited depend on this definition. Is it a positive answer to one of the screening questions? Evidence of macular degeneration? If so, how much? I’m sure that a lot of the elderly (and younger) population have some small irregularities in their vision, but what makes it significant?

The study does show that the app can be used as a screening tool due to the congruence with the “gold standard” ophthalmologic exam. And given that vision is one of the major factors associated with falls risk, it may be a cost-effective tool for reducing it.

Here are my questions for the authors and presenter:

  • What is you exact definition of “significant abnormal vision?” This is critical, because it determines the significance of the rest of your results. If the threshold is set too low, you will detect many anomalies but they may not be clinically significant. This definition needs to be as objective as possible so others can duplicate and take advantage of your work.
  • What do you recommend for workflow to incorporate this tool? Who should do it and when? Should the user focus on particular portions of the app (e.g. Amsler and visual fields, acuity)?
  • Describe your future plans for the longitudinal study mentioned in the abstract.

This is very interesting prevention work. I look forward to the nitty gritty details next week!

Reference: Stop the fall: identifying the 50% of geriatric trauma patients with significant vision loss. EAST 2021, Paper 11.

EAST 2019 #6: Trauma Prevention and Your Trauma Registry

Trauma centers verified by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) (and most states who perform their own designation visits) are required to engage in trauma prevention activities. Furthermore, ACS centers are required to provide prevention programs based on identified local needs. Frequently, trauma professionals see a pattern of injury in the patients they treat. This generally stimulates a search through their trauma registry. Reviewing registry data is the most direct way of identifying and confirming injury patters specific to the local population.

The next abstract for review describes the process and outcomes of such a project from a Level II center in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. They noted a pattern of diving injury and high cervical fractures. This was confirmed using 2016 registry data. Admitted patients were intensive resource users, with 71% requiring ICU admission and operative fixation, and nearly half requiring rehab admission upon discharge.

Based on this, they developed a “Think Before You Dive” program with posters, signs, swag (a custom koozie), a trifold brochure, and magnets with diving and water safety tips. Posters and flyers were provided to local business, and magnets were placed in hotel rooms in the area. One time-share company even placed a hard stop in their registration process so that visitors had to acknowledge the safety message.

What’s a koozie, you ask? I didn’t know the technical term for this, but here’s a picture:

Here are the factoids:

  • There was a reduction of 100% in cervical spine injuries, and 24% of all water-related incidents in the targeted area
  • All remaining diving/high-cord injuries came from outside the target area
  • It was estimated that costs were reduced by $1.2 million

As you can see, this is not the typical hard research paper usually provided at most scientific meetings. However, it is very important that this kind of information is presented, as it has the potential for impact on the other clinical research.

Here are some questions for the authors and presenter to consider in advance to help them prepare for audience questions:

  • How did you recognize the problem initially? Was it a pattern picked up by humans? Which ones (nurses, trauma physicians, therapists/rehab, others)?
  • Why did you think that your prevention approach would be effective?
  • Provide some details on how you convinced businesses to carry your message. Was there any resistance, and what were their arguments? How did you overcome it?
  • Show us the numbers. Although it may be difficult to show statistical differences in patient numbers, cost savings is important as well. Show the patient numbers pre- and post-intervention for the cluster area and outside of it.
  • Define how you arrived at your cost savings numbers. How do the previously published economic numbers relate to costs at your own center and those reported in this study?

I believe that this is important information, and will help many other centers properly design their own trauma prevention programs!

Reference: Using the trauma registry to guide your injury prevention programs. EAST 2019 Paper #18.

The  December Trauma MedEd Newsletter Is Available!

This month’s newsletter deals with a topic near and dear to all trauma programs: Prevention. Here are the topics covered:

  • Prevention and the ACS
  • The “Most Common” Causes of Trauma Deaths
  • Common Prevention Activities
  • Do Prevention Programs Work?
  • Tips For Trauma Center-Based Prevention Programs

Subscribers received this issue last week. Subscribe now and be sure to get the next issue early.  So sign up for early delivery now by clicking here!

Click here to download the current issue

Pick up back issues here!

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Next Trauma MedEd Newsletter Is Coming Next Week!

As promised, the next Trauma MedEd newsletter will be released next week. Just in time for some light Christmas reading!

The topic is “Prevention.” Here are the areas I’ll be covering:

  • The American College of Surgeons requires all US trauma centers to engage in prevention activities. Unfortunately, there is frequently confusion about the role of the injury prevention coordinator, what kinds of programs are acceptable, and how local data needs to be included in prevention planning. I will cover all of this, and more, in the first part of the newsletter.
  • Curious about what others are doing out there? I’ll give you an idea of the most common prevention programs, and whether they are national programs or home grown.
  • I’ll review a few papers on the efficacy of trauma prevention programs.
  • Finally, I’ll give some tips on how to optimize the performance of your injury prevention coordinator and design effective programs.

As always, this issue will go to all of my subscribers first. If you are not yet one of them, click this link to sign up and/or download back issues.

Unfortunately, non-subscribers will have to wait until I release the issue on this blog, sometime during the week after Christmas. So sign up now!

The Next Trauma MedEd Newsletter: All Things Prevention

All trauma centers in the US, and many in other parts of the world, are required to have injury prevention programs. Level I centers in the States are also required to have a named Injury Prevention Coordinator with a job description and salary support.

In this newsletter, I’m going to dig into the specifics of injury prevention. Some of the topics I will cover include:

  • Explaining the American College of Surgeons injury prevention requirements
  • A list of the most common types of injury prevention programs around the US
  • Efficacy of specific prevention programs (violence prevention, elderly falls)
  • Making your injury prevention coordinator great
  • Tips on designing an excellent trauma prevention program
  • And more!

This issue will be available sometime in mid-December. As usual, it will be emailed to all subscribers first. About two weeks later, I’ll make it available to all here on the blog.

If you want to get it as soon as it is released, please subscribe by clicking here! And you can pick up back issues when you follow the link, too!