4 Common Injuries Sustained In Car Accidents

According to the research in which data regarding car accidents was analyzed, for every death caused as the result of an automobile accident, 18 people are hospitalized and nearly 400 individuals sustain injuries that require outpatient medical treatment. In other words, the number of people injured as the result of automobile accidents is significant. Four common injuries are associated with car accidents: neck injury, back injury, knee injury and brain trauma.

 

When many of these types of injuries are identified in a person involved in a car accident, professional intervention, treatment and therapy from medical providers and rehabilitation specialists like those on the staff of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centers of Ontario many times play an integral part in a person’s overall recovery.

 

Neck Injury

The term whiplash commonly is associated with a car accident — and for good reason. Oftentimes, a car accident causes a driver and passengers alike to experience a sharp or abrupt backward and forward jerking of the head.

 

Neck related injuries associated with a car accident do not necessarily appear at the time of an accident. Indeed, many people have no idea that they have sustained a neck injury after being involved in an a car accident for 24 or more hours after the incident.

 

The severity of neck injuries associated with a car accident vary. For example, a person may experience only a minor, temporary neck injury because of a car accident. On the other hand, other individuals experience debilitating and even life threatening neck injuries after involvement in a car collision. It is a good idea to seek professional advice from a physiotherapy clinic in Ontario as soon as possible after the accident

 

Back Injury

Back injury represents another of the more common types of injuries sustained by a person involved in an automobile accident. As is the case with neck injury, oftentimes a person does not realize that he or she sustained a back injury until a day or more passes from the time of the accident.

 

Car accident related back injuries many times prove to cause chronic problems for people involved in these types of collisions. For example, many individuals experience ongoing pain and impairment of movement because of a back injury arising from a car accident.

 

Knee Injury

Because of the construction of the typical motor vehicle, and the nature of most types of car accidents, knee injuries represent yet another type of commonly experienced injury associated with automobile collisions. These include everything from sprains and strains to broken bones associated with the knee. Although a knee injury typically is more readily evident following a car collision, in some cases a knee injury actually does not become apparent until a day or so elapses following a car accident.

 

Brain Trauma

Sadly, a considerable number of people involved in car accidents each year experience some degree of brain trauma. The extent of such an injury varies significantly, resulting in everything from more minor and temporary impairment to a profound and permanent disability.

Categories: accident nbsp, accidents, brain trauma, car, car accident, car accidents, car collision, injuries, knee injury, nbsp neck, neck injury, people involved

Nanotechnology Study May Reduce Brain Trauma in Soldiers

A team of researchers have been awarded $6 million to develop nanotechnology therapies for the treatment of traumatic brain injury and associated infections. With this new funding from the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a multi-disciplinary team of renowned experts in laboratory research, translational investigation and clinical medicine will come together, led by Michael J. Sailor, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD).

According to the most recent estimate from the Joint Theatre Trauma Registry – a compilation of data collected during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom – 18% of battlefield wounds sustained by men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan consist of ballistics injuries that penetrate the skull. Researcher Clark C. Chen of the UCSD School of Medicine, a neurosurgeon with the UCSD Health System, explained, ‘A major contributor to the mortality associated with a penetrating brain injury is the elevated risk of intracranial infection,’ as projectiles drive contaminated foreign materials into neural tissue.

Under normal conditions, a physiological system called the blood-brain barrier protects your brain from infections. However, Chen, who is also an associate professor and vice chair of research in the Division of Neurosurgery at the UCSD School of Medicine, noted, ‘Unfortunately, those same natural defense mechanisms make it difficult to get antibiotics to the brain once an infection has taken hold.’

Nanotechnology is a complementary wellness therapy in which nanoparticles are constructed which can find and treat infections and other damage associated with traumatic brain injuries. Sailor, the UCSD materials chemist who leads the team, commented, ‘Our approach is focused on porous nanoparticles that contain highly effective therapeutics on the inside and targeting molecules on the outside. When injected into the blood stream, we have found that these silicon-based particles can target certain tissues very effectively.’ Because drug-resistant strains mutate and evolve rapidly, researchers must constantly adjust their approach to treatment.

The key to this team’s approach will be Nanocomplexes that contain genetic material known as short interfering RNA, or siRNA, which have been developed by Sangeeta Bhatia’s research group at MIT.  Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, said, ‘The function of this type of RNA is that it specifically interferes with processes in a diseased cell. The advantage of RNA therapies are that they can be quickly and easily modified when a new disease target emerges.’

Nanotechnology Study May Reduce Brain Trauma in Soldiers

Categories: brain trauma, nanotechnology, Research