Elderly burns: Clinical frailty scale and functional ambulation classification in predicting prognosis

The study was to investigate the role of mobility and frailty in predicting the prognosis of elderly burns along with the burn severity.

In this retrospective study, 67 patients aged 65 and over who were hospitalized between October 1, 2017, and Septem-ber 30, 2020 in our burn center are included in the study. The demographic data, etiological data, clinical variables, the percentage of burned total body surface area (TBSA), Abbreviated Burn Severity Index (ABSI), Functional ambulation classification (FAC) scores, and Clinical frailty scale (CFS) scores are evaluated.

Mean age of the study population was 71.58±7.4 years and most of the patients were female (65.7%). The percentage of TBSA was 11.34±12.2. The flame burns were the most common etiology (87.5%) of deaths (n=8), whereas 52.5% of the survivors were scalds. Most of the survived patients were functional ambulatory (93.2%). On the other hand, only 25% of patients who died were functional ambulatory (p<0.001). Also, 83% of the survivors were normal according to CFS scoring, whereas 25% of the patients who did not survive were vulnerable and 75% was frail (p<0.001).

The percentage of elderly burns is low, yet the mortality is high in these patients which emphasize the importance of elderly burns. The ABSI is of great help, but ambulation status and comorbid diseases should be taken into consideration in terms of elderly burns. The current study demonstrated that FAC and CFS will be helpful to better predict the outcomes of elderly burn patients along with ABSI.