Of the 64 billion people living in the UK, about 11 million are over 65. As an expanding demographic, we see more of this population in the ED than ever before.
Now arguably becoming the bread and butter of our day to day work, the spotlight is being turned on how we can do better in the management of trauma in the elderly.
The HECTOR (Heartlands Elderly Care Trauma & Ongoing Recovery, @HECTORcares) Project seeks to improve our understanding of trauma and how to apply it in the the elderly population. They are starting to run courses of the next few years and have released the first 6 chapters of the course manual on www.heftemcast.co.uk.
The emphasis is simple - trauma care needs to be patient centred. Designing systems to be patient centred is unfortunately a nightmare so its up to us as clinicians to make sure its done right. We have to Care!
Check out the website for more info on the project including podcasts with its founder Dr Dave Raven.
Plus check out the first 6 chapters of the course manual below:
Chapter 1 – An Introduction to HECTOR
Chapter 3 – The Primary Survey
Chapter4 – Imaging after the Primary Survey