Predicting post-trauma functional disability for individuals without significant brain injury

MacKenzie, E. J.; Shapiro, S.; Moody, M.; Smith, R.

Affiliations

¹School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

²University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland

³University of Maryland at Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland

Abstract

The utility of the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) and the Injury Severity Score (ISS) were tested for their ability to predict functional disability at time of discharge from the hospital and changes in functional disability for periods up to 1 year following discharge. The ISS has been shown to correlate well with mortality and length of stay (LOS) but the relationship to levels of disability has not been carefully examined until now. 599 patients (ages 16-45) have been interviewed at time of discharge and at 6 and 12 months post-discharge to ascertain functional disability along 4 dimensions ADL, IADL, communication, mobility). This paper reports on the relationship between severity and functional disability at time of discharge for a subset of patients who did not suffer a significant brain injury. Results show that the relationship between ISS and status at discharge is not monotonically increasing as it is with mortality and LOS. Rather, the proportion of people with severe injuries who report limitations is lower than for those with moderately severe in-juries. Further, it is shown that the AIS of the most severe extremity and spine injury carry considerably more weight when predicting functional status at discharge than do the AIS scores of injuries to any other body region.

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Cited By (2)

Year	Entry
1986	States JD. Adult occupant injuries of the lower limb. In: Biomechanics and Medical Aspects of Lower Limb Injuries. Symposium on Biomechanics and Medical Aspects of Lower Limb Injuries; October 29-30, 1986; San Diego, CA. Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineering:97-107. SAE 861927.
1985	Eastham JN Jr. The effects of AIS manual injury severity qualifiers on subjective estimates of injury severity. In: 29th Annual Proceedings, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). October 7-9, 1985; Washington, DC.353-363.