[Longer waiting time and higher mortality in older people with traumatic brain injuries. Mapping of emergency prehospital management and hospital management in Västerbotten].

The main purpose was to study the prehospital and early intrahospital treatment of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the county of Västerbotten 2011-2012. In total, 162 patients were included. The main finding was that a large proportion of TBI patients were older men who fell in the same or from a different level. Older patients had higher mortality and had to wait longer for diagnostic imaging compared to younger patients. Furthermore, most patients were initially relatively unaffected by the injury and around 1/5 of the patients were transported to hospital by private transport. Finally, we observed that most patients were admitted to hospital and computer tomography scan of the head was performed within 4 hours.