Low-Energy Trauma Capable of Producing Significant Injuries
This article showed that up to 1/3 of patients in this study that suffered relatively minor trauma sustained serious, life-threatening injuries. Now, while chiropractors do not typically deals with these types of patients, we do see patients everyday who were involved in relatively minor accidents and yet have significant levels of discomfort and injuries. This article just supports what chiros have been saying for decades.
J Am Coll Surg 2001;192:147-152 Low-energy trauma can produce significant injuries, and trauma physicians should be careful about dismissing patients with seemingly insignificant mechanisms of injury, according to a report published in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. George C. Velmahos, from the Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center, in Los Angeles, and colleagues assessed the significant injuries of 110 patients who sustained ground-level falls, 95 patients who sustained low-level falls, and 96 patients who were found down with no evidence of significant trauma. More than a third of patients had significant injuries, 20 patients required admission to an intensive care unit, 14 required an operation, and 4 died, the authors state. The most common types of injuries were intracranial and skeletal. Nearly every patient received a CT scan, but only one quarter had abnormal CT findings.