To provide high-quality care and promote appropriatemedical decision making for older adults, clinicians must consider the additional complexity that arises when caring for the geriatric trauma patient. This narrative review of the literature addresses available information regarding outcomes for geriatric trauma patients, geriatric-specific concepts or syndromes, guidelines and protocols for optimizing care for the population, indices and models for
prognostication, and ethical issues that arise in care of the traumatically injured geriatric patient. Inclusion criteria for the literature search included peer-reviewed scholarly publications and society guidelines published since 2003 that addressed geriatric(s)/elderly trauma/injury. The review also includes foundational information from several classic peer-reviewed publications and books.