Injuries related to heat stroke and dehydration can sometimes be life-threatening.
Therefore anyone active under the sun should always hydrate proprely and know the symptoms of a heat stroke so activities can be stopped before its too late.
Fall is the number one cause of death for construction workers. Every year in America, 10,000 construction workers suffer serious injuries and 200 die in fall accidents. To raise awareness about this problem, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) are organizing a yearly national campaign: The National Safety Stand-Down. The event lasts several days during which every construction company owner is invited to spend a day or at least a few hours with their employees to review fall safety protection. Thousands of construction companies are participating every year reaching millions of construction workers.
This year the event was supposed to be organized in May but many construction businesses were shut down because of the Covid-19 crisis. Therefore the 7th National Safety Stand-Down to prevent Falls has been moved to the 14th to 18th of September 2020.
For this year, the organizers suggest that the event be held virtually or that companies owners make sure that construction workers social distance during the stand-down. Video and webinar might be a good way to keep the stand-down safe for all.
Spinal cord injuries result in damages that are often irreversible or require patients to spend a very long time in a hospital setting for rehabilitation. Existing technologies used to rehab patients suffering from spinal cord injury are often heavy and can not be used in a home setting. However a recent headset prototype created by a Biomedical Engineering PhD student at the University of Glasgow, brings new hope to spinal cord injury patients.
Nina Petric-Gray used 3D printing technology to produce a light electroencephalography (EEG) headset designed to help restore hand functions. The headset sends low-energy electrical pulse to artificially generate body movement and record the electrical activity of the brain allowing long distance medical monitoring.
When she started her project, the PhD student modified gaming headsets, adding electrodes to record the brain activity. The prototype was heavy and uncomfortable. The student also found that it was difficult to accurately place the electrodes for optimal recording. The idea was good but a real bespoke prototype needed to be created for this particular use. The student used a product design software to create a light usable prototype allowing for optimal electrode placement. After the product design was finalized the student used 3D technology to bring it to life. With 3D printing, there is no need for a mold anymore and every headset can be customized for each patient’s head with optimal electrodes placement.
Too many construction workers are still being injured or dying while working in trenches or excavations. A new video by OSHA on excavation and trenching safety looks at previous violations and how to prevent them.
While doing excavation, construction workers are facing multiple hazards. Cave in hazard is the most dangerous one. Unfortunately many construction workers are injured or die in trenches because of negligence. Failure to respect excavation requirements is the 6th most common violation in the construction industry behind fall protection (general requirement), scaffolding, ladders, fall protection training and eye and face protection.
While looking at violations related to excavation and trenching the most common one is failure to protect employees in excavations with 809 citations in 2019. OSHA requires employers to set up specific protective systems such as shoring for workers in excavations however too many employers are still cutting corners as the high number of violations demonstrates.
As summer season is back, water related injuries and deaths are starting to increase. In New York, the underwater currents at Rockaway Beach are known to be dangerous and ever year people are seriously injured or died after drowning in the water at this location. This year on May 22nd, 24 year old Fidel Ramirez, went for a swim at Beach 91st street despite recommendations from Mayor de Blasio not to go in the water and drowned. He suffered critical drowning injuries and died at the hospital.
Backyard pools might seem safer than the Rockaway beach especially with the actual Covid-19 pandemic, however they can be dangerous as well. Last Sunday 3 people died from drowning in a backyard pool in New Jersey.
Because young children can’t express themselves proprely it can be challenging for doctors to diagnose a traumatic brain injury or concussion. A recent article published in Pediatric Emergency Care suggests that using previous “Characteristics of Diagnosed Concussions in Children Aged 0 to 4 Years Presenting to a Large Pediatric Healthcare Network” might be helpful. The study was authored by Podolak, Olivia E. MD*; Chaudhary, Sofia MD*,†; Haarbauer-Krupa, Juliet PhD‡; Metzger, Kristina B. PhD, MPH*; Curry, Allison E. PhD, MPH*,†; Kessler, Ronni S. MEd*; Pfeiffer, Melissa R. MPH*; Breiding, Matthew J. PhD‡; Master, Christina L. MD, CAQSM, FACSM*,§,∥; Arbogast, Kristy B. PhD*,†,§ (Click here For author Information)
The researchers analyzed the medical data of 329 young patients aged 0 to 4 who visited the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia healthcare network from October 1, 2013, to September 30, 2015 . They identified the 3 top common mechanisms of injury.
The first one was fall and represented 64.4 % of all young patients who were diagnosed with a concussion with children younger than 2 year old being at a higher risk of sustaining a concussion in a fall than children from 2 to 4 year old. Falling from furniture was the most common type of fall leading to traumatic brain injury, followed by tripping and hitting the ground and falling down the stairs.
When a child sustains head injury, parents always worry about the risk of traumatic brain injury and now more than ever seek medical advice through telephone triage call systems. When parents call such systems, they will be connected to a triage nurse who will provide them with recommendations on what to do next. However the question is, how parents follow up on these recommendations. A recent study by Catherine C. McDonald, PhD, RN, FAAN
, Melissa R. Pfeiffer, MPH, Roni L. Robinson, MSN, RN, CRNP, Kristy B. Arbogast, PhD, Christina L. Master, MD, FAAP, CAQSM published in Clinical Nursing Research, tried to determine if parents follow recommendations and what percentage of the phone calls result in a TBI diagnostic. They especially wanted to know if parents who had been recommended to see a doctor because a traumatic brain injury was suspected, would indeed do it.
The researchers analyzed one year of pediatric head injury calls at the Barton Schmitt Pediatric Head Injury Telephone Triage Protocol. Among the 5,045 phone calls for patients ages 17 and younger and meeting the criteria for the study, they found 2, 464 calls during which the triage nurse recommended to seek medical care urgently or in the next 24 hours. They estimated that in 84.1% of cases parents followed the recommendations provided on the phone and brought their children for an urgent medical consultation at their medical home network or at an outside care facility. Among those children who were recommended to seek urgent care, 39.5% were diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.
36% of patients who are hospitalized for Covid-19 have heart injury and have a higher risk of death according to a recent study by Anu Lala, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Anu Lala’s team studied the records of 3000 patients who checked in at the emergency room of five New York City hospitals during the first two weeks of April. Among these 3000 patients. 60% of them were male. The average age was 66 year old. 25% were self-identified as African American and 26% were self identified as Hispanic or Latino. A quarter of them had a history of heart disease and another quarter had cardiovascular risk factors.
An estimated 9,400 children sustain lawnmower injuries every year in the US. Injuries are often catastrophic, sometimes deadly. They often require multiple treatments and hospital stays and can have life long consequences. 4 year old boys in rural areas are the most at risk of getting injured in a lawnmower accident.
A study by the Department of Orthopaedics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA (Mr. Shah, Dr. Talwar, Mr. Aoyama, and Dr. Ganley), the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas City, Kansas City, MO (Dr. Schwend), and the Division of Pediatric Orthopaedics, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, Baltimore, MD (Dr. Sponseller) and recently published in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons studied lawnmower injuries in the US over 13 years.
The researchers used the Pediatric Health Information System database to identify 1,302 Americans between 1 and 18 years old who checked into the ER to be treated for a lawnmower injury. While, the Pediatric Health Information System database does not record all children injuries in the country, it is nationally representative as it contains a varied selection of 49 participating children’s hospitals located around the regions and locales.
Missed and delayed diagnoses are common medical errors that can lead to serious injury and death. This morning the Daily Mail wrote about an 11 year old boy who died from severe bowel obstruction after a doctor misdiagnosed him with constipation and sent him back home. The doctor neglected to send him for an X-ray despite symptoms consistent with bowel obstruction.
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