Abbreviated Injury Scale

Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) is an internationally accepted way to classify the severity of injuries. Developed by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM), AIS is the globally accepted tool for ranking injury severity.

History

Injuries vary in the severity from minor injuries that can be treated or heal on their own to very severe (maximal) injuries that cannot be cured. In order to standardize the description and to compare, an internationally accepted injury severity scale was developed by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine.

Versions

The current version is the 2015 version. According to the AAAM, AIS 2015 is the next step in the continual evolution of traumatic injury classification and scaling.  This newest revision improves brain injury coding, spinal cord impairment coding and enhances many code definitions by incorporating current and appropriate medical terminology.

Abbreviated injury Score

AIS-Code	Injury	Example	AIS % prob. of death
1	Minor	superficial laceration	0
2	Moderate	fractured sternum	1 – 2
3	Serious	open fracture of humerus	8 – 10
4	Severe	perforated trachea	5 – 50
5	Critical	ruptured liver with tissue loss	5 – 50
6	Maximum	total severance of aorta	100
9	Not further specified (NFS)

Classification document

The AAAM has a classification document available via their website here

See also

• Functional capacity index
• Injury severity score

External links

• Official website