Author: Dr Tony Williams, Consultant Occupational Physician, Working Fit Ltd.
Date: August 2015.
Many clinicians assume that age affects recovery time. This is not supported by evidence. Longer recovery times reflect co-morbidities such as cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes that are more prevalent with age.
Healthy young volunteers (18-55 years of age) and elderly volunteers (>65 years of age) had a wound created on the anterior thigh, and the rate of epithelialization was assessed. The elderley volunteers had a delay of 1.9 days in epithelialization (Holt et al., 1992).