Skateboarding: more dangerous than roller skating or in-line skating.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the circumstances, severity, and outcomes of skating-related injuries among children admitted to trauma centers. DESIGN: A cross-sectional comparison of roller skaters (n = 154), in-line skaters (n = 190), and skateboarders (n = 254) aged 5 to 19 years who were hospitalized with injuries. SETTING: Seventy-nine hospitals and pediatric trauma centers participating in the National Pediatric Trauma Registry between October 1988 and April 1997. RESULTS: Three quarters (75.8%) of the study sample were male, nearly half (47.8%) were injured on roads, and more than one third (37.1%) had head injuries. Among skateboarders, 50.8% had head injuries compared with 33.7% of in-line skaters and 18.8% of roller skaters (P<.001). According to the Injury Severity Score, injuries to skateboarders were 8 times more likely to be severe or critical compared with roller skaters' injuries and more than 2 times as likely to be severe or critical compared with in-line skaters' injuries. Mean hospital length of stay was 6.0 days for skateboarders, 3.4 days for in-line skaters, and 2.4 days for roller skaters (P<.001). Skateboarders were more likely to be male and to be injured on roads than were in-line skaters or roller skaters. CONCLUSIONS: Skateboarding-related injuries are more severe and have more serious consequences than roller skating or in-line skating injuries. Research is needed to identify ergonomic and behavioral factors responsible for higher head injury risk to skateboarders, and interventions are needed to reduce the risk.

Causes and outcomes of pediatric injuries occurring at school.

This study examines the causes and outcomes of injuries occurring at school and highlights the need for injury prevention strategies. Descriptive statistics were applied to data from a national pediatric trauma database on 1,558 K-12 graders injured at school severely enough to require hospitalization. Factors analyzed included age, gender, cause, place, time, injured body regions, use of hospital resources, in-hospital fatality rate, and functional limitations. Most injuries were unintentional (89.7%) and occurred mostly to children 10-14 years old. Almost half occurred in recreational areas. Falls and sports were the most frequent causes, but the pattern varied by grade and gender. Most children sustained injuries to the extremities (41.3%) or to the head (39.2%). Two percent sustained spinal cord injuries, mainly from sports. Eight children died, and 43.6% developed one or more functional limitations. Frequent, severe, and costly injuries should be the focus of school safety policies, and a mix of injury prevention strategies should be applied.

Violence: A preventable cause of head injury in children.

Violence is one of the most important and preventable causes of head injury in children. This review discusses the epidemiology of youth violence from previously published reports and from new information obtained from the National Pediatric Trauma Registry. Violence prevention is considered in two categories: primary prevention aimed at the general population, and secondary prevention strategies focused on injured children and adolescents. Rehabilitation professionals have substantial roles to play in both primary and secondary prevention of youth violence.

Topography of visual and somatosensory projections to the superior colliculus of the golden hamster.

The topography of visual and somatosensory projections to the superior colliculus in the Syrian hamster was studied using electrophysiological techniques. The visual projection to the superficial layers of the colliculus is similar in general topography to that described for other rodents. The magnification of the visual field on the colliculus surface was greatest for nasal visual field. The magnification factor paralleled retinal ganglion cell density for corresponding visual field sectors. In the deep layers of the colliculus, a somatosensory projection is found in register with the visual projection such that the anterior somatosensory field and nasalmost visual field are both represented in rostral colliculus; posterior somatosensory fields and temporal visual fields are found in caudal colliculus. Likewise, upper visual and somatosensory fields are found in medial colliculus, and lower visual and somatosensory fields are found in lateral colliculus. Large receptive fields make the somatosensory topography less precise than the visual topography, but this lack of precision could serve to keep the two maps generally in register during eye and body movements.