Head Injury in Road Traffic Accidents - A Study from North East India.

ABSTRACT

Introduction: India is undergoing major economic anddemographic transition with increased urbanization,industrialization, construction projects and motorization. Headinjury is the result of variety of mechanisms including motorvehicle and motor cycle accidents, pedestrians being struckby motor vehicles, falls from heights, occupational hazards,assaults, riots and bomb blasts. India has second highestreported mortality rate of 29.2 per 100000 people from roadtraffic injuries. Injuries are reported to be the seventh leadingcause of death (11% of all deaths) in India, with road trafficinjuries making up to 78% of them (WHO, 1999). Currentresearch aimed to study pattern of Head Injury in Road TrafficAccidents from North East India.Material and Methods: This study was conducted on medicolegal cases coming for autopsy in Department of ForensicMedicine, Guwahati Medical College and Hospital, Guwahatiduring the period of 1st August, 2009 to 31st July 2010. Duringthis period a total 2474 autopsies were performed in ourdepartment with 815 cases had head injuries. After obtainingthe necessary and relevant information about the victim, athorough and complete autopsy was performed on the deadbody, recording the findings on the proforma.Result: Our findings are similar to above studies and also tothe studies of Sevitt S (1973), Chandra J et al (1979), TyagiAK (1986), Motto L (1988) and Basu R et al (1992), Dandonaand Mishra (2004), Menon A and Nagesh KR (2005). Mostcommon cause of head injury is Road side accident (21.26%),most commonly occurring during office hours (6-9am)(25.45%) with 4 wheelers being most common offendingvehicle(49.39%).Conclusion: Road are like arteries of country. Vehicles mustrun for development of country and necessities of life. Injurieson head and other parts of body due to road traffic incidentsare unavoidable but with scientific data, we can minimize theloss of life and misery due to death and injury. We shoulddesign our interventions based on these data and studies.