Purpose: Unintentional injury constitutes the fifth leading cause of mortality in the United States, and nineth among adults greater than 65years of age. In contrast to pediatric curricula, there is little formal training on injury anticipatory guidance for elderly and vulnerable patients in either inpatient or outpatient settings. Medical students and resident physicians are often not taught to discuss anticipatory issues other than smoke alarms, seatbelts, bike helmets, and preventative screening, nor are they taught to approach these in a disease specific way. While general injury prevention can be linked to developmental stage and age in pediatrics, the non-linear decline in health of an older patient makes generalized anticipatory guidance more difficult. 

Method: Given many common themes in pediatric, adult, and geriatric injury prevention, we designed an anticipatory guidance pocket card with the mnemonic SAFE-T, encompassing topic areas of supervision, abuse, falls, environment, and travel. Each topic area is subdivided into areas of high injury risk, and then preventative guidance is provided. Traditional pediatric guidance is done by developmental stage and age. The geriatric anticipatory guidance looks at trigger conditions (diseases, comorbidities, cognitive decline) and links these to the injury risk and preventative strategy.

The powerpoint is an instruction guide to the SAFE-T card.  Two versions of the SAFE-T card are included - a color version and a greyscale.