Injury

Injury (trauma) represents a sudden event affecting the organism from the outside and damaging it. An accident leads to an accident event and its consequence is a wound (i.e. an objectively detectable health disorder resulting from an accident).

Types of injury (vulnerationes)

 * open (vulneratio aperta) – the continuity of the skin or mucous membrane is broken, depending on the penetration into body cavities there are:
 * non-penetrating
 * penetrating – through encephalic or spinal dura mater, parietal pleura, parietal peritoneum


 * closed (vulneratio occlusa) – tissue damage in greater depth without disturbance of the skin and mucous membranes

Epidemiology
Accidents are the most common cause of death for people under 40 years of age (in the age group under 25, polytrauma prevails), overall they score the 4th place:
 * 1) cardiovascular desease
 * 2) cancer
 * 3) stroke
 * 4) injuries

Causes of injury

 * according to the mechanism of occurrence, we divide injuries into:
 * 1) traffic –mostly multiple injuries and polytrauma, often multiple people injured at the same time, high % mortality and disability rate
 * 2) occupational – limb injuries, falls from a height, crush syndrome, electric shocks, burns, etc.
 * 3) agricultural – loss of limbs, crush syndrome, recovery (of bodies) in inaccessible terrain is typical
 * 4) homemade – mostly falls from a small height, injuries while working with various devices
 * 5) sports – mostly limb injuries, tendon ruptures, jumping into water – spinal and spinal cord injuries
 * 6) criminal – blunt injuries, stab and gunshot wounds, or in some cases blast syndrome

Injury prevention

 * the main factor in the occurrence of accidents is the person themselves - for the prevention of traffic accidents, the most important thing is to follow the rules of road traffic and the use of safety features of vehicles, for the prevention of occupational accidents, then the observance of work safety rules (protective equipment, learning to operate devices, etc.)
 * it is a task for the whole of society, education in the family, at school, various organizations (traffic inspectorates, occupational safety, etc.) and the media take part in it

Specific accidents in transport

 * drivers and passengers:
 * unfastened – heart contusion when hitting the steering wheel, deceleration with rupture of the aorta, head impact on the windshield (intracranial and maxilofacial injury)
 * "seat belt injury" – contusion of the myocardium (right seat), blunt injury to the liver (left seat)
 * "whiplash injury" – hyperextension of the cervical spine with subsequent hyperflexion in the event of an impact from behind (distortion of the cervical spine)
 * "paper bag syndrome" – internal pneumothorax with a small impact on the chest, if the breath is held (closed glottis) in inspiration
 * dashboard trauma – storey fractures of the lower limbs (fractures of tibial plateau, patella fracture, knee joint dislocation, femoral neck and diaphysis fractures, posterior hip joint dislocation)


 * pedestrians:
 * carriage trauma – earlier, formed at low speed - rolling mechanism with decollement
 * fender trauma – lower speeds – an impact with the pedestrian being thrown and severe lower leg fractures
 * hood trauma – higher speeds – falling on the hood and throwing the body a long distance with polytrauma

Related articles

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