CHARACTERISTICS OF HAND INJURIES IN CHILDREN AND PREVENTION
Keywords:
injuries, hands, prevention, childrenAbstract
Introduction: Hand injuries are among the most common childhood injuries seen in emergency rooms of children's hospitals. In case of accidents, the hand is the part of the body that is most often thrown out to reduce the consequences, which leads to a wide range of injuries to both soft tissues and chondro-skeletal structures.
Aim of the study: The aim was to point out the characteristics of hand injuries, and to point out the necessity of developing programs for their prevention.
Material and methods: This retrospective study included patients aged 17 years and younger, a total of 305 of them. We analyzed: gender distribution, age of patients, type of injury, types of interventions, dominant side of injuries, involvement of fingers and their number in hand injuries, prevalence of flexor or extensor tendon injuries, prevalence of amputations or semi-amputations, treatment with osteointethic material and immobilization, as well as their percentage.
Results: Out of a total of 305 patients, 240 were boys and 65 girls. The tendon section stands out as the most common injury. The most common types of interventions were tenoraphy with immobilization. The children injured their right hand a little more often. Most of them had injuries to one finger, with the highest frequency of V and III fingers. There was a significantly higher prevalence of flexor tendon injuries compared to extensor tendons. Semi-amputations were more common than complete amputations and fingertip amputations.
Conclusion: Hand injuries are a very common cause of morbidity in the pediatric population, and that there is a wide range of them. As most accidents are of the accidental type, adequate preventive measures could reduce their incidence, and the focus should be on developing an adequate prevention program.
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