We present the results of a questionnaire completed by 526 victims of accidents involving three- and four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles. All victims were treated at the emergency departments of 10 regional hospitals in Quebec. In 70% of cases, the vehicles overturned. Two thirds of victims were injured in accidents without collision, typically involving overturns on level ground or hills. We suggest accident reconstruction research as a means of identifying engineering solutions as one element in an injury control approach.
The objective of this study was to describe a population of children admitted to a tertiary care pediatric hospital with severe trauma to identify key areas for injury prevention research, and programming.
Retrospective chart review conducted on all children 0-17 years admitted to the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) between April 1, 1996, and March 31, 2000, following acute trauma. Each record was reviewed and assigned an ISS using the AIS 1990 revision. All cases with an ISS > 11 were included in the study.
There were 2610 trauma cases admitted to CHEO over the study period. Of these, 237 (9.1%) had severe trauma (ISS > 11). Sixty-two percent were male. Twenty-nine percent were between the ages of 10 and 14 years, 27% between 5 and 9 years, 16% between 15 and 17 years, 15% between 1 and 4 years, and 13% less than 1 year old. The most common mechanisms of injury were due to motor vehicle traffic (39%), falls (24%), child abuse (8%), and sports (5%). Of those resulting from motor vehicle traffic, 53 (57%) were occupants, 22 (24%) were pedestrians, and 18 (19%) were cyclists. When combining traffic and nontraffic mechanisms, 26 (11% of all severe trauma cases) occurred as a result of cycling incidents. The most severe injury in 65% of patients was to the head and neck body region.
Research efforts and activities to prevent severe pediatric trauma in our region should focus on road safety, protection from head injuries, avoidance of falls, and prevention of child abuse.
To determine the risk of injury associated with the new use of individual benzodiazepines and dosage regimens in the elderly.
Prospective database cohort study with 5 years of follow-up.
Quebec, Canada.
Two hundred fifty-three thousand two hundred forty-four persons aged 65 and older who were nonusers of benzodiazepines in the year before follow-up.
Population-based hospitalization and prescription and medical services claims databases were used to compare the risk of injury during periods of benzodiazepine use with those of nonuse. Periods of use were measured for 10 insured benzodiazepines by drug and dose as time-dependent covariates. Injury was defined as the first occurrence of a nonvertebral fracture, soft-tissue injury, or accident-related hospital admission. Patient age, sex, previous injury history, concomitant medication use, and comorbidity were measured as fixed and time-dependent confounders. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the risk of injury with benzodiazepine use and to determine the extent to which patient characteristics, differences in dosage, or in the effect of increasing dosage for individual drugs explained differences between drugs.
More than one-quarter (27.6%) of 253,244 elderly were dispensed at least one prescription for a benzodiazepine, and 17.7% of elderly were treated for at least one injury during follow-up, of which fractures were the most common. Patient characteristics, systematic differences in the risk of injury in elderly prescribed different benzodiazepines, and differences in dosage prescribed for individual drugs confounded the risk of injury with benzodiazepine use. The risk of injury with increasing dosage varied by drug from a hazard ratio of 0.92 (95% confidence interval (CI)=0.60, 1.42) for alprazolam to 2.20 (95% CI=1.39, 3.47) for flurazepam per 1 standardized adult dose increase.
The risk of injury varied by benzodiazepine, independent of half-life, as did the risk associated with increasing dosage for individual products. Higher doses of oxazepam, flurazepam, and chlordiazepoxide are associated with the greatest risk of injury in the elderly.
During the years 1939-1945 Finland was involved in the Second World War, divided for her part into three different wars: The Winter War, The Continuation War and The Lappish War. Finland was not occupied and she was spared wholesale bombing. The country suffered most of her casualties through the battles at the front, the majority being men born in 1886-1926. Some 700,000 men and women took part in her defence and almost half of them were wounded or killed. Finland was compelled to build up her health and medical services from scratch for the rehabilitation and care of those wounded in War. During the 1980's the geriatric problems of the war cripples have increased and many new patients are now complaining about their war wounds for the first time. The medical care of war cripples in Finland will cover 70 years; thus 20 years work remains.
