Influence Of Study Population Definition On The Effect Of Age At Incident Traumatic Brain Injury

The objective was to determine how study population definition influences the effect of age on TBI recovery. As age is a criterion used to determine whether a blunt head trauma patient receives a head computerized tomography (CT) scan, we hypothesized that when looking at all comers receiving CT after blunt head trauma, fewer older individuals would meet Veterans Administration and Department of Defense (VA/DoD) criteria for TBI, and would, therefore, display better outcomes than younger. However, restricting to participants meeting VA/DoD criteria for TBI, we hypothesized that older individuals would have worse outcomes.