Red-blue-purple, green then yellow, most bruises are gone by 21 days. Traditional medical authorities disagree among themselves on time-line.
Reviewing colour photographs of 369 bruises of known age on 89 subjects 10-100 years old, researchers[1] could say only that yellow means more than 18 hours old. Red could appear at any time, blue-purple faded with time but had no predictive value, yellow could first appear much later than 18 hours. Bruises of the same age on the same person had different hues and evolved at different rates. Colour evolution was slower in the elderly.
| PRACTICE
POINT Challenge the medical expert who claims to be able to age bruises. |
Copyright © 2003 Electronic Handbook of Legal Medicine