Cause Of Fatal Injuries Research Articles

Development of a statistical analysis software for determining effectiveness of a comprehensive fall risk management protocol

IntroductionAs the leading cause of fatal injuries in geriatric populations, falls are a serious health concern with a predicted rate of seven fall-related deaths per hour by 2030. The Timed...

Grading Abdominal Trauma: Changes in and Implications of the Revised 2018 AAST-OIS for the Spleen, Liver, and Kidney.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, trauma is the leading cause of fatal injuries for Americans aged 1-44 years old and the fourth leading overall cause of death. Accurate and early diagnosis, including grading of solid organ injuries after blunt abdominal trauma (BAT), is crucial to guide management and improve outcomes. The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) Organ Injury Scale (OIS) is the most widely accepted BAT scoring system at CT both within the United States and internationally, and its uses include stratification of injury severity, thereby guiding management, and facilitation of clinical research, billing, and coding. Furthermore, this system also plays a role in the credentialing process for trauma centers in the United States. The newly revised 2018 OIS provides criteria for grading solid organ damage into three groups: imaging, operation, and pathology. The final grade is based on the highest of the three criteria. If multiple lower-grade (I or II) injuries are present in a single organ, one grade is advanced to grade III. The most substantial change in the revised 2018 AAST-OIS is incorporation of multidetector CT findings of vascular injury, including pseudoaneurysm and arteriovenous fistula. The authors outline the main revised aspects of grading organ injury using the AAST-OIS for the spleen, liver, and kidney after BAT, particularly the role of multidetector CT and alternative imaging in organ injury detection, the importance of vascular injuries in grade change, and the impact of these changes on patient management and in prediction of operative treatment success and in-hospital mortality. ©RSNA, 2023 Supplemental material and the slide presentation from the RSNA Annual Meeting are available for this article. Quiz questions for this article are available through the Online Learning Center.

Dorsal suspension in full-body harnesses: Comparison of perceived discomfort, pressure and physiological response

Falls from height are still a major occupational hazard, particularly in the construction industry, where it is the leading cause of fatal injuries. When opting for personal fall arrest systems, the use of a safety harness is mandatory. Following a fall arrest, motionless suspension in a full-body harness can be hazardous and lead to death. This paper investigates the effect of harness type, gender, and somatotype on perceived discomfort, the pressure exerted by the harness straps, and the evolution of physiological parameters in motionless suspension.For this study, 30 male and 30 female students (10 ectomorph, 10 mesomorph, and 10 endomorph for each gender) were suspended for a maximum of ten minutes from the dorsal D-ring, in four different harnesses. The selected harnesses for this study are commercially available, one of them is X-configuration, another is Y-configuration, and the other two are the more traditional H-configuration. The results show that the H-configuration harnesses, which are very common in the industry and often the cheapest models, are perceived as the least tolerable in suspension. Moreover, H-configuration harnesses lead to greater reduction in muscular blood oxygenation and greater increase in the heart rate, which could make this type of harness hazardous. The Y-configuration harness seems to be the best performer in suspension. The influence of the sub-pelvic strap on suspension tolerance is not very clear and could be studied further. Those results could be useful to develop new harness models that would increase the suspension time tolerance.

Large-group failure mode and effects analysis for risk management of angle grinders in the construction industry

Accidents associated with the use of construction equipment are among the leading causes of fatal injuries in the construction industry. In particular, angle grinders are associated with a significant number of occupational injuries every year. However, practitioners and researchers have paid limited attention to this issue. To facilitate the development of more sophisticated plans and guidelines to prevent angle grinder-related accidents, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is employed for risk management in such a context. The conventional FMEA method is extensively used for examining potential failure in many industries, but has been criticized much in the literature for its various limitations. This study presents a novel large-group FMEA (LGFMEA) model, which integrates a clustering analysis for handling experts at large scale, a consensus reaching process with relative basic uncertain linguistic information (RBULI) to manage opinion diversity among experts, and the behavioral TOPSIS method to rank failure modes. The assessment information is characterized by the RBULI, a novel information representation construction method applied to handle complex evaluations under uncertainty. Finally, the proposed LGFMEA approach is performed for risk analysis related to angle grinder use to obtain insights into risk mitigation, and the sensitive and comparative analyses are performed to verify the rationality and feasibility of the model.

77 METHODS FOR IDENTIFYING FILIPINO GENDER MINORITIES AND MENTAL HEALTH RISKS IN ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Aim 1: To explore methodologies to identify gender minorities, and Filipinos, separately, in an electronic health record system. Aim 2: To characterize the similarities and differences in demographic, socioeconomic, and mental health of Filipinos gender minorities compared to Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders, and White/ European Americans. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: This study was approved by the University of Hawaii Institutional Review Board. Cross-sectional retrospective data were obtained from a collaborative community clinic’s electronic health record system. Patients were age 18 and older with a clinical diagnosis for gender dysphoria and from Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander, White/ European American, and Filipino backgrounds. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Preliminary data revealed that 11% of the clinical population were diagnosed with gender dysphoria (N=373) with 57.6% (n=215) who met the inclusion criteria with complete health registration forms. Patients were from Filipino (21.8%), Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (23.3%), White/ European American (31.6%), and multiethnic (23.3%) backgrounds. Most patients reported mental health (e.g., depression) conditions (50.6%-64.7%). Further statistical analyses will reveal if Filipinos have higher or lower levels of anxiety, depression, and suicide risks than Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander, and White/ European American gender minority individuals. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: In Hawaii, one person dies by suicide every two days; suicide is the lead cause of fatal injuries. Study findings can inform future methodology studies to identify gender minorities and develop culturally relevant gender affirming mental health programs for gender minorities.

LT-Fall

Falls are the leading cause of fatal injuries to elders in modern society, which has motivated researchers to propose various fall detection technologies. We observe that most of the existing fall detection solutions are diverging from the purpose of fall detection: timely alarming the family members, medical staff or first responders to save the life of the human with severe injury caused by fall. Instead, they focus on detecting the behavior of human falls, which does not necessarily mean a human is in real danger. The real critical situation is when a human cannot get up without assistance and is thus lying on the ground after the fall because of losing consciousness or becoming incapacitated due to severe injury. In this paper, we define a life-threatening fall as a behavior that involves a falling down followed by a long-lie of humans on the ground, and for the first time point out that a fall detection system should focus on detecting life-threatening falls instead of detecting any random falls. Accordingly, we design and implement LT-Fall, a mmWave-based life-threatening fall detection and alarming system. LT-Fall detects and reports both fall and fall-like behaviors in the first stage and then identifies life-threatening falls by continuously monitoring the human status after fall in the second stage. We propose a joint spatio-temporal localization technique to detect and locate the micro-motions of the human, which solves the challenge of mmWave's insufficient spatial resolution when the human is static, i.e., lying on the ground. Extensive evaluation on 15 volunteers demonstrates that compared to the state-of-the-art work (92% precision and 94% recall), LT-Fall achieves zero false alarms as well as a precision of 100% and a recall of 98.8%.

Feasibility Analysis of Using Channel State Information (CSI) Acquired from Wi-Fi Routers for Construction Worker Fall Detection

Accidental falls represent a major cause of fatal injuries for construction workers. Failure to seek medical attention after a fall can significantly increase the risk of death for construction workers. Wearable sensors, computer vision, and manual techniques are common modalities for detecting worker falls in the literature. However, they are severely constrained by issues such as cost, lighting, background, clutter, and privacy. To address the problems associated with the existing proposed methods, a new method has been conceived to identify construction worker falls by analyzing the CSI signals extracted from commercial Wi-Fi routers. In this research context, our study aimed to investigate the potential of using Channel State Information (CSI) to identify falls among construction workers. To achieve the aim of this study, CSI data corresponding to 360 sets of activities were collected from six construction workers on real construction sites. The results indicate that (1) the behavior of construction workers is highly correlated with the magnitude of CSI, even in real construction sites, and (2) the CSI-based method for identifying construction worker falls has an accuracy of 99% and can also accurately distinguish between falls and fall-like actions. The present study makes a significant contribution to the field by demonstrating the feasibility of utilizing low-cost Wi-Fi routers for the continuous monitoring of fall incidents among construction workers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first investigation to address the issue of fall detection using commercial Wi-Fi devices in real-world construction environments. Considering the dynamic nature of construction sites, the new method developed in this study helps to detect falls at construction sites automatically and helps injured construction workers to seek medical attention on time.

Developing and Testing Training Tools for Fall Protection in Construction

The major cause of fatal injuries in construction is due to falls, and their occurrence has only increased over the years. Ineffective and low-engaging methods used to deliver construction safety training content are among the major factors contributing to high injury rates. This can be prevented through more effective safety training. Serious Games are interactive training tools used with modern computer applications that offer engagement missing in traditional construction safety training methods. This paper aims to develop and test a construction safety training Serious Game titled, FallSafe, that focuses on fall protection training. FallSafe is implemented in Virtual Reality to create a life-like training experience and uses a first-person perspective and storyline to engage the player in reporting on-site hazards as a construction safety intern attending their first day of work on site. The implementation of a Serious Game framework during the development of FallSafe ensures consistent delivery of desired learning outcomes. FallSafe pilot-tested six students and is found to be an engaging and effective method of construction safety training and received praise for its storyline, interactivity, and use of Virtual Reality technology to deliver construction safety training. FallSafe has the potential to be further developed, tested, and implemented to teach construction safety on a large scale which could help prevent injury and death on the site and decrease costs to firms.

Pediatric Trauma in The Netherlands: Incidence, Mechanism of Injury and In-Hospital Mortality

BackgroundIn the Netherlands, there are no specialized or certified pediatric trauma centers, especially for severely injured children. National and regional agreements on centralization of pediatric trauma care are scarce. This study aims to describe the incidence, injury mechanism and in-hospital mortality of pediatric trauma in the Netherlands, as a prelude to the further organization of pediatric trauma care.MethodsA retrospective cohort analysis of data from the Dutch National Trauma Registry in 2009–2018, concerning all children (0–16 years) hospitalized due to injury in the Netherlands.ResultsThe annual number of admitted injured children increased from 8666 in 2009 to 13,367 in 2018. Domestic accidents were the most common cause of non-fatal injury (67.9%), especially in children aged 0–5 years (89.2%). Severe injury (injury severity score ≥ 16) accounted for 2.5% and 74% of these patients were treated in level-1 trauma centers. In both deceased and surviving patients with severe injuries, head injuries were the most common (72.1% and 64.3%, respectively). In-hospital mortality after severe injury was 8.2%. Road-traffic accidents (RTAs) were the leading cause of death (46.5%).ConclusionsDomestic accidents are the most common cause of injury, especially in younger children, whereas RTAs are the lead cause of fatal injury. Severe pediatric trauma in the Netherlands is predominantly managed in level-1 trauma centers, where a multidisciplinary team of experts is available. Improving the numbers of severely injured patients primarily brought to level-1 trauma centers may help to further reduce mortality.

Fatal industrial injuries in the Republic of Bashkortostan

Introduction. Every year, about 350 thousand people die in the workplace for reasons related to production all over the world. The significance of this problem dictates the need to analyze fatal occupational injuries in order to further develop a set of measures aimed at preventing it. The study aims to analyze fatal occupational injuries at enterprises of the Republic of Bashkortostan on the basis of personalized data as an information basis for the development and justification of priority areas for the prevention of accidents in the workplace. Materials and methods. For analyzing the indicators of general occupational injuries and fatal injuries, we used the results of the all-Russian monitoring of labor conditions and safety of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, Russian Federation, analytical materials of labor conditions and safety of the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Bashkortostan for the period 2017-2020. To assess the completeness of the accounting of occupational injuries in Russia and the Republic of Bashkortostan, the researchers used the ILO methodology "On assessing the reliability of statistics of accidents at work in countries with imperfect accounting". Based on the materials of 177 Acts on the investigation of fatal accidents (Form 4) provided by the State Labor Inspectorate in the Republic of Bashkortostan for the period 2017-2020, we have studied the circumstances and causes of the death of workers at work, their professional status and age-length characteristics. Results. The analysis of the dynamics of occupational injuries for 2017-2020 in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Bashkortostan showed a decrease in both total occupational injuries and fatal injuries, with a decrease in the frequency of worker deaths occurring at a faster pace. This provided an increase in the ratio of the total number of injuries to the number of fatal injuries, indicating an increase in the level of safety at enterprises and the quality of accounting for minor injuries. However, in 2020 the level of fatal industrial injuries in the Republic exceeded the same indicator in Russia by 25%. An in-depth analysis of fatal injuries based on accident investigation materials in the Republic of Bashkortostan for 2017-2020 showed that most often workers died in construction (0.77 per 1000 workers) and mining enterprises (0.75%) as a result of such types of accidents as traffic accidents, falling from a height, exposure to moving objects, flying rotating objects, parts, machines, etc. Specialists also observed a high level of fatal injuries in agriculture (0.58%), transport and storage enterprises (0.41%), water supply, sewerage (0.38%), etc. The main causes of fatal injuries were unsatisfactory organization of work (34.7%) and violation of traffic rules (29.2%). At the victim’s workplaces the researchers have identified a significant number of violations of labor protection requirements: the absence of special assessment of working conditions (SAWC), briefings and training on labor protection, violations of the work and rest regime, labor and industrial discipline, non-issuance of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the absence of mandatory preliminary and periodic medical examinations. Male workers were most often died (97.6%); in the profession of "driver"; at the age of 30-39 years. There is a very high proportion of victims with work experience of up to one year (44.6%). Almost 75% of the victims had less than 5 years of work experience. This indicates unsatisfactory training in occupational safety of newly hired workers, regardless of their age and previous experience at other enterprises. Conclusion. The in-depth analysis of fatal injuries at enterprises of the Republic of Bashkortostan showed the need to develop a set of targeted occupational safety measures aimed at reducing the level of occupational injuries, taking into account the most traumatic types of economic activity, the most frequent types of accidents and causes of accidents. In addition, special attention should be paid to the training of safe methods and techniques for performing the work of low-skilled workers, as well as the organization of checking the knowledge of traffic rules among drivers of vehicles.

Indicators of the risk of death when performing professional duties in personnel of the operational services of the EMERCOM of Russia

Relevance. Extreme conditions of activity of the personnel of the operational units of the EMERCOM of Russia while on duty for emergency elimination of the consequences of accidents, disasters, fires and other emergency situations (ES), probably cause excessive stress on the functional reserves of the body, along with professionally accelerated diseases, erroneous actions, injuries and even death.Intention – To conduct an analysis of the risks of death by causes of fatal injuries, type of activity, categories of personnel and operational services of the EMERCOM of Russia for 10 years from 2012 to 2021.Methodology. The indicators of fatal injuries among personnel (military, employees with special ranks, and workers) of the operational units of the EMERCOM of Russia were obtained from the statistical data bank on morbidity, injuries, disability and death in the line of duty. Deaths of personnel were correlated with activities (liquidation of ES consequences, education and sports, everyday activities), 18 circumstances of injury were classified by causes (technical, organizational, psychophysiological and dangerous ES factors). Risks of death were calculated per 100 thousand ( ×10–5) personnel. Arithmetic means and their errors (M ± m) are indicated. Results and Discussion. Over 10 years (2012–2021), 202 staff members of the EMERCOM of Russia died on duty due to fatal injuries, on average (20 ± 3) people per year. The average annual risk of death in the operational services of the EMERCOM of Russia was (9.49 ± 1.37) ∙ 10–5, for male workers in the Russian economy it was almost the same, (9.84 ± 0.56) ∙ 10–5, for firefighters from the created array from 32 countries – statistically significantly lower, (2.27 ± 0.29) ∙ 10–5 (p < 0.001). Technical factors were associated with (0.87 ± 0.58) ∙ 10–5 risk of death and accounted for 9.4% of fatalities; organizational factors – with (1.09 ± 0.43) ∙ 10–5 risk of death and 11.4% of fatalities; psychophysiological factors – with (3.70 ± 0.32) ∙ 10–5 risk of death and 39.1 % of fatalities; ES hazards – with (3.83 ± 0.85) ∙ 10–5 risk of death and 41.1% fatalities. Operational activities were associated with (5.31 ± 1.26) ∙ 10–5 risk of death and 55.9 % of all the fatalities; training and sports – with (0.75 ± 0.24) ∙ 10–5 and 8 % of all the fatalities; daily activities were associated with (3.44 ± 0.44) ∙ 10–5 risk of death and 36.1 % all the fatalities.For the operational staff, risk of death turned out to be (9.06 ± 1.06) ∙ 10–5 and 63.9 %, respectively, for the prevention staff – (5.61 ± 1.42) ∙ 10–5 and 4 %, respectively; for the technical staff – (13.83 ± 5.96) ∙ 10–5 and 15.8 %, respectively, for managers – (10.26 ± 2.64) ∙ 10–5 and 16.8 %, respectively. For the personnel of the Federal Fire Service of the EMERCOM of Russia the risk of death was (7.80 ± 0.74) ∙ 10–5 and 73.8 %, respectively; for the Rescue military units of the EMERCOM of Russia – (37.32 ±19.10) ∙ 10–5 and 13.4 %, respectively; for the Search and Rescue and Emergency rescue units of the EMERCOM of Russia – (20.45 ± 8.13) ∙ 10–5 and 5 %, respectively, for Paramilitary mine rescue units of the EMERCOM of Russia – (38.65 ± 20.14) ∙ 10–5 and 6.4 %, respectively; for the State Inspectorate for Small Vessels of the EMERCOM of Russia – ( 5.36 ± 3.81) ∙ 10–5 and 1.5 %, respectively. The risk of death was low for prevention personnel, medium for operational staff and management personnel, and high for technical personnel. A low risk of death was observed among the personnel of the State Inspectorate for Small Vessels of the EMERCOM of Russia, medium risk was observed among the personnel of the Federal Fire Service of the EMERCOM of Russia, and a high risk was observed in the other analyzed services.Conclusion. Injury prevention will help improve the safety of personnel, and taking into account the level, structure and dynamics of injuries will optimize the forces and means of the Russian EMERCOM.

Анализ рисков гибели личного состава Федеральной противопожарной службы МЧС России в 2006–2020 гг.

The aim of the study is to analyze the risks of fatalities among the personnel of the Federal Firefighting Service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) of Russia in 2006-2020 by categories of personnel, causes of fatal injuries, and types of professional activity. Materials and research methods. Injury rates of Russian EMERCOM Federal Firefighting Service personnel were taken for 2006-2015 from the data bank on morbidity, injury, disability, and death during the performance of official duties in the Russian EMERCOM; for 2016-2020 — from the reports of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia. Risks of death were calculated per 100 thousand people or ×10-5. Results of the study and their analysis. Over 15 years (2006-2020), 224 members of the Federal Firefighting Service of the Russian EMERCOM died as a result of injuries received during the performance of their official duties, averaging (15±1) deaths per year. The average annual risk of death was (8.53±0.83)×10-5. That is statistically reliably lower, than the average risk for Russian Federation male workers — (13.23±1.12)×10-5 (p<0.01). The polynomial trends of the indicators of risk of death of Federal Firefighting service personnel and of male workers of the Russian Federation with different significance coefficients of determination show a decreasing trend in the data. The consistency of the trends is low and statistically insignificant (r=0.228; p>0.05), which may indicate the influence of different (multidirectional) leading factors on fatal injuries. The average annual risks of fatal injuries by causes of fatal injuries, types of professional activity and personnel categories were calculated.

Temporal analysis of the frequency of accidents associated with construction equipment

This study performs a temporal investigation of construction equipment-related accidents (CEAs). Accidents associated with the use of construction equipment are among the leading cause of fatal injuries in the construction industry. Although there are several studies on accidents, there are relatively few in-depth temporal analyses on the frequency of accidents. Using Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) accident data, we extracted information including equipment type, accident time, and accident cause. Using this information and the injury class highlighted in the OSHA dataset, the number of accidents as a function of time was determined and chi-square tests were performed. In addition, a series of interviews were conducted to qualitatively validate the results of the data analyses. It was found that the interval between 13:00 and 13:59 had the highest number of CEAs. Based on a chi-square test that divides time into four windows, it was found that the frequency of CEAs as a function of time is statistically significantly different. We also show the frequency of accidents based on time and equipment type, time and injury class, and time and accident cause. The results will contribute to the development of more sophisticated plans and guidelines to prevent accidents associated with the use of construction equipment.

Firearm Injuries in the Tribal Area of Pakistan. An Emerging Trend

Background: Due to multiple conflicts among the society many countries are facing rise in the firearm causalities. Whether it may be due to unstable government or economic crises it leads to huge financial burden to the country and ultimately to the family. Easy access to firearm weapons is one of the leading cause. Material and Methods: It is a cross sectional descriptive study, conducted in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The study was conducted on intentional firearm injury cases which reported to hospital during the period from January 2010 to December 2010 in District Hospital Timergara after informed consent, history was recorded and examination was done. Study was focused on age, sex, site of injury, parameters causing injury, the person involved in causing this injury and management provided. Results: A total of 200 cases were reported during this study period. The cases included in the study were 150 (75%), of intentional injuries, out of which 143 (95.3%) cases were of homicidal firearm injuries and 7 (4.6%) cases were suicidal in nature. Majority of the cases were reported during the month of May (20.29%) and June (17.48%) and lowest figure was observed in the December (2.14%). Conclusion: Study concludes that not believing in the judicial system of the community added with multiple other factors leads intentional firearm injuries which is a dominant cause of fatal injuries observed in the society. Law should be enforced strictly on the use of illegal firearm weapons, as reported in this study that in majority of the cases weapon used was illegal. Keywords: Firearm injuries, Tribal Areas, Pakistan, homicidal, Firearm weapons

A personalized approach empowering successful aging: Patient perspective on fall prevention education.

Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury, and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma, among older adults. However, patient perspectives on preferences for obtaining fall education are not well reported. To identify components of successful fall prevention education. Prospective qualitative study. Tertiary care center; institutional. Adults aged 65 years or older with a history of falls who received services from inpatient trauma or outpatient geriatric services. One-hour face-to-face semistructured interview. Semistructured interviews sought to determine participants' history of fall education and perceived strengths and weaknesses of various formats of fall education. Nearly all participants (9/10) indicated they had not received fall prevention education of any kind. Many participants (6/10) reported that, despite not receiving any formal education about falls, they had either given or received information about falls from other older adults in their communities. Participants indicated that framing fall education as a part of healthy aging would be more desirable and mentioned involving participants' families as part of the education. The majority of participants (7/10) suggested fall education be delivered through in-person discussion with providers, and most (9/10) indicated this would provide a personalized approach with opportunity for questions. Participants specified fall education should consist of both environmental modifications (5/10) and awareness of one's surroundings (4/10). Despite histories of falls, nearly all participants reported they had not received formal fall education. However, many indicated they received fall information informally through their communities. Participants agreed successful fall prevention education would be delivered in an empowering way by a trusted member of the care team.

Real‐time automatic helmet detection of motorcyclists in urban traffic using improved YOLOv5 detector

In traffic accidents, motorcycle accidents are the main cause of casualties, especially in developing countries. The main cause of fatal injuries in motorcycle accidents is that motorcycle riders or passengers do not wear helmets. In this paper, an automatic helmet detection of motorcyclists method based on deep learning is presented. The method consists of two steps. The first step uses the improved YOLOv5 detector to detect motorcycles (including motorcyclists) from video surveillance. The second step takes the motorcycles detected in the previous step as input and continues to use the improved YOLOv5 detector to detect whether the motorcyclists wear helmets. The improvement of the YOLOv5 detector includes the fusion of triplet attention and the use of soft-NMS instead of NMS. A new motorcycle helmet dataset (HFUT-MH) is being proposed, which is larger and more comprehensive than the existing dataset derived from multiple traffic monitoring in Chinese cities. Finally, the proposed method is verified by experiments and compared with other state-of-the-art methods. Our method achieves mAP of 97.7%, F1-score of 92.7% and frames per second (FPS) of 63, which outperforms other state-of-the-art detection methods.

IR-UWB Sensor Based Fall Detection Method Using CNN Algorithm.

Falls are the leading cause of fatal injuries in the elderly such as fractures, and secondary damage from falls can lead to death. As such, fall detection is a crucial topic. However, due to the trade-off relationship between privacy preservation, user convenience, and fall detection performance, it is generally difficult to develop a fall detection system that simultaneously satisfies all conditions. The main goal of this study is to build a practical fall detection framework that can effectively classify the various behavior types into “Fall” and “Activities of daily living (ADL)” while securing privacy preservation and user convenience. For this purpose, signal data containing the motion information of objects was collected using a non-contact, unobtrusive, and non-restraint impulse-radio ultra wideband (IR-UWB) radar. These data were then applied to a convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm to create an object behavior type classifier that can classify the behavior types of objects into “Fall” and “ADL.” The data were collected by actually performing various activities of daily living, including falling. The performance of the classifier yielded satisfactory results. By combining an IR-UWB and CNN algorithm, this study demonstrates the feasibility of building a practical fall detection system that exceeds a certain level of detection accuracy while also ensuring privacy preservation and user convenience.

Smart Helmet and Insole Sensors for Near Fall Incidence Recognition during Descent of Stairs

Stair falls on construction sites are leading causes of fatal injuries, and the dangers for workers are greater because they usually carry heavy loads. Nevertheless, there are very few studies related to stair falls among construction workers. The purpose of this study was to detect near fall incidence during stair descent and analyze the changes in weight bearing and center of pressure. A total of 10 healthy males participated in this study. Three experimental conditions were set up to analyze stair falls: natural descent (E1), weighted descent (E2), and near fall-simulated descent (E3). While walking down the stairs, subjects wore a three-axis accelerometer sensor attached to a Smart Helmet and a pair of textile pressure sensors (insole) placed inside Smart Shoes. The collected data were analyzed for: (1) whole body balance, (2) plantar pressure distribution, (3) head tilt pattern, and (4) conformity between the helmet and insole sensors. The results showed that our proposed smart helmet and smart shoes have relatively good performance in terms of classifying the weight-shifting patterns in the head and the feet during stair descent. The results of this study may be helpful in detecting near falls of workers on construction sites.

Barriers to Firearm Injury Research

Firearm injuries and motor vehicle injuries are 2 leading causes of fatal injury in the U.S., each accounting for approximately 35,000 deaths annually. Research on firearm injuries is under-represented compared with research on motor vehicle collisions. This study seeks to identify perceived barriers to firearm injury research versus motor vehicle injury research. This was a mixed-methods survey of corresponding authors of a minimum of 1 study, archived in PubMed, related to firearm injury or motor vehicle injury between 2014 and 2018. Analyses were performed in 2019. Electronic surveys included both closed- and open-ended questions to assess barriers to research. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression was performed to identify differences in perceptions to barriers between the 2 groups. Qualitative analysis of free-text responses was performed through inductive derivation of themes. Surveys were distributed to 113 firearm injury researchers (42% response rate) and 241 motor vehicle injury researchers (31.5% response rate). After adjustment, firearm injury researchers were less likely to cite institutional support (AOR=0.3, 95% CI=0.1, 0.8) as a factor contributing to their success, than motor vehicle injury researchers. Firearm injury researchers were more likely to report fear of personal threats (AOR=10.4, 95% CI=2.4, 44.4) and experiencing personal threats (AOR=16.1, 95% CI=1.6, 165.4). Thematic analysis revealed 4 themes: career, political, funding, and harassment. When compared with motor vehicle injury researchers, firearm injury researchers are significantly more likely to report limited support and threats to personal safety as barriers to research. Further research to understand the impact of these barriers and methods to overcome them is needed.

The Rose-Colored Glasses of Geriatric Fall Patients: Inconsistencies Between Knowledge of Risk Factors for and Actual Causes of Falls.

Background:Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury, and most common cause of non-fatal trauma, among older adults. We sought to elicit older patient’s perspectives on fall risks for the general population as well as contributions to any personal falls to identify opportunities to improve fall education.Methods:Ten patients with a history of falls from inpatient trauma and outpatient geriatric services were interviewed. Transcripts were analyzed independently by five individuals using triangulation and constant comparison (NVivo11, QSR International) to compare fall risks to fall causes.Results:All patients reported that either they (9/10 participants) or someone they knew (8/10) had fallen. Despite this, only two personally worried about falling. Patient perceptions of fall risks fell into seven major themes: physiologic decline (8/10); underestimating limitations (7/10); environmental hazards (7/10), lack of awareness/rushing (4/10), misuse/lack of walking aids (3/10); positional transitions (2/10), and improper footwear (1/10). In contrast, the most commonly reported causes of personal falls were lack of awareness/rushing (7/10), environmental hazards (3/10), misuse/lack of walking aids (2/10), improper footwear (2/10), physiologic decline (2/10), underestimating limitations (1/10) and positional transitions (1/10). In general tended to attribute their own falls to their surroundings and were less likely to attribute physical or psychological limitations.Conclusion:Despite participants identifying falls as a serious problem, they were unlikely to worry about falling themselves. Participants were able to identify common fall risks. However, when speaking about personal experience, they were more likely to blame environmental hazards or rushing, and minimized the role of physiologic decline and personal limitations.