The Incidence of Physiatry-Relevant Complications in Trauma Patients Admitted to an Urban Canadian Trauma Center

The objective of this study was to describe the incidence of complications in trauma patients that could be prevented, diagnosed, and / or managed by a consulting acute care physiatrist. Demographic and complication data were extracted by chart review of adult trauma patients admitted to a Canadian academic trauma center. Subjects were included if they had a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and / or multiple injuries resulting in an Injury Severity Score > 15. Means and standard deviations were calculated for continuous variables and frequencies for categorical data. Secondary analyses involved using Spearman's rho and Chi-Square analysis to examine relationships between the development of complications and various patient factors. A total of 286 individuals were included. The overall incidence of a PM&R-relevant complication was 32.9%. The complications with the highest incidence were pneumonia (15.5%), delirium (14.1%), and urinary tract infection (13.4%). Secondary analyses demonstrated associations between the development of complications with older age, the presence of co-morbidities, having both a traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury, and length of stay. This study demonstrated that trauma patients may experience multiple complications that are of relevance to the consulting physiatrist. Post-Publication Correspondence to: Lawrence R. Robinson, St. John's Rehab, 285 Cummer Avenue, Room S125, Toronto, ON, Canada, M2M 2G1, Phone number: 1-416-226-6780, ext. 7274; Fax number: None, E-mail: Larry.Robinson@sunnybrook.ca Disclosures: The authors have no conflicts to declare. The project was funded by the Sunnybrook AHSC AFP Innovation Fund. Copyright © 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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