Abstract
Context:Skeletal injuries discovered from human remains are classified into antemortem,perimortem and postmortem. Studies that documents injuries of various skeletal elementsis of vital importance to forensic anthropologist.
 Aim: This study investigated antemortem,perimortem, postmortem and other injuries caused by various instruments among skeletal elements.
 Methodology: A total of 200 bones of unknown age and gender were studied.Injuries were interpreted based on basic features specific to them and each was described andphotographed. Chisquare test was used to show association between skeletal elements andtime of injuries. Statistical evaluation was done using SPSS 20 Software Version. Significance was accepted at p<0.05.
 Result: The bones from this study showed 17.50% antemortem, 24%perimortemand 57% postmortem. Findings showed that 49.50% of the bones had blunt forceinjury, 30.50% had sharp force while 20.00% had ballistic injuries. Basic features of antemorteminjuries were smooth and round fractured edges within bones. Sharp, smooth fractured edgeswere observed among perimortem bones in contrast to irregular, blunt fractured edges anduneven discoloration in postmortem bones .Straight line incisions were seen in bones withsharp force injuries,presence of an entrance wound in ballistic injuries while an impact area wasdiscovered in most bones with blunt force injury.Findings showed that there exist a significantassociation between ante, peri and postmortem injuries in the ulnar,radius and femur bones(X2=25.32;13.35;10.11. p=0.000;0.001,0.006)
 Conclusion: Bones from this study showed morepost mortem blunt force injury.
 Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.20(1) 2021 p.50-57
Highlights
Bone have been defined as a complex material that constitute both organic and mineral components which has been mainly identified as hydroxyapatite .1it has been reported that the hydroxyapatite gives bone its hardness and rigidity, while collagen is a connective tissue that provides bone its elasticity and flexibility.[1,2,3,4] Bone had been described as been viscoelastic and anisotropic.56According to Hiller et al (2003) the two main types of bone tissue are cortical and cancellous.[3]
Antemortem, postmortem and perimortem injuries were interpreted based on fracture patterns,fracture edges,bone tear, plastic deformation, adherent materials found within investigated bones
Villa and Mahieu,(1991) defined a fractured angle as the angle formed by the fractured and cortical bone surface while a fractured edge was described as the structure of the fractured margin.19Further findings from this study revealed acute angles among perimortem bones while right angles were noticed among post-mortem bones
Summary
Bone have been defined as a complex material that constitute both organic (mostly collagen) and mineral components which has been mainly identified as hydroxyapatite .1it has been reported that the hydroxyapatite gives bone its hardness and rigidity, while collagen is a connective tissue that provides bone its elasticity and flexibility.[1,2,3,4] Bone had been described as been viscoelastic and anisotropic.56According to Hiller et al (2003) the two main types of bone tissue are cortical and cancellous.[3]. Skeletal injuries are classified into cranial and precranial categories based on their position but a different classification system was linked with the time and nature of injuries.[1,7,8] According to some authors, injuries to bones can occur before death (antemortem) ,at or near the time of death (perimortem) or after death (postmortem) describing the time of occurrence.[9,10]
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