Download ORS98 PrimStab - BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit

INJURY BIOMECHANICS AS A MEANS TO PREVENT INJURIES IN CANADA
Peter A. Cripton+ and Shelina Babul*#
+Departments
of Mechanical Engineering and Orthopaedics and *Department of Paediatrics,
University of British Columbia, #BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit, Vancouver, BC
INTRODUCTION
Injury Biomechanics is centrally involved in understanding
the mechanisms of human injury. This information is used to
prevent injuries or advance medical treatments. Examples of
injury prevention devices that biomechanical engineers have
been centrally involved in include the development and
advancement of seat belts, airbags and helmets.
Theme 1: Prevention of Eye Injuries
1
 Motivation: Ocular injury tolerance data can aid
automotive design by recommending limits on the
allowable speed, mass, and shape of projectiles associated
with airbag deployment or vehicle damage during motor
vehicle collisions.
 Method: Literature search
 STAPP Car Crash Conference Proceedings and
Pubmed Medline
 Results: Eye Injury Tolerance
 Projectiles of various size, shape and mass (Figure 1)
12
10
10 mm Sphere,
Penetrating Injury
8
Mass (g)
10 mm Sphere,
Non-Penetrating
Injury
6
Needle
Projectiles,
Penetrating
Injury
4
Theme 3: Improving Child Restraint Performance
3
2
No Injury
0
0
12
10 Characteristic
Size (mm)
90
80
70
12.5 m m
Cylindrical
Foam
10 to 75%
Corneal Abr.
60
50
Velocity (m/s)
40
30
20
10
0
 Objectives
To outline research underway at the Injury Biomechanics
Laboratory at the University of British Columbia and
illustrate the importance of a collaborative relationship
between biomechanical engineers and provincial and
national injury prevention organizations such as the British
Colu mbia Injury Research and Prevention Unit .
30 14
 Motivation: Injuries to the spinal cord (Figure 3) result in loss of function
below the level of the injury with catastrophic consequences from quality of
life, health care utilization, and financial perspectives.
 Method: Drop Tower Experiments (Figure 4)
 Conclusion: Prevention of Spinal Cord Injuries
 This technique will be used to evaluate and develop novel devices to
prevent spinal injuries in automotive and sports environments.
Figure 2 – Corneal abrasion and penetration summary graph: This
graph summarizes data made available to the authors, Potts and
Distler5 and Duma and Crandall.4 Smaller and sharper objects
penetrate the globe at momentums that are several magnitudes
lower than those necessary with 10 mm diameter rigid spheres.
Theme 2: Prevention of Spinal Cord Injuries 2
Figure 5 – Six-year-old occupant simulation. The yellow line indicates head
motion. (Source: Partners for child passenger safety). This is a common misuse
when the shoulder belt doesn’t fit properly.
 Motivation: Motor vehicle traffic is the leading cause of death in BC for the
ages 0 to 14 years.6 High rates of child restraint misuse have been reported in
BC7 (Figure 5).
 Method: Investigations of specific MVCs
 Engineering, epidemiological and medical Investigations of BC injuries
to children associated with specific motor vehicle collisions.
 Conclusion: Improving Child Restraint Performance
 This information will be used to educate the public, guide policy
decisions and to identify performance improvements to child restraints
that can be accomplished through engineering redesign.
GENERAL CONCLUSION
Injury prevention is a complex multidisciplinary field. Many injury
prevention research topics require effective interdisciplinary collaboration
between physicians, epidemiologists, engineers, and others.
References:
1. Boak J.C., Lau C., Bellezza A., Saari A., Cripton P.A., Ocular Injury Tolerance to Projectile Impacts During Motor Vehicle
Collisions. Proceedings of the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. May 1-5,
2005, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
Projectiles
2. Saari A, Morley P, Cripton PA, Spinal cord deformation during burst fractures of the cervical spine in the presence of
physiologic preload. Proceedings of the 2005 Summer Bioengineering Conference of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers, June 22-26, Vail, CO, USA
3. Louman-Gardiner K, Mulpuri K, Perdios A, Tredwell S, Cripton PA, Pediatric chance fractures and associated neurological
Figure 1 – Schematic of eye tolerance experiment.
injury in British Columbia: recommendations for injury prevention, Proceedings of the International Collaboration on Repair
Discoveries (ICORD) Annual Research Meeting, October 17, 2005
4. Duma SM, Crandall JR. J Trauma 2000;48:786-9.
 Corneal Injury tolerance data (Figure 2)
5. Potts AM, Distler JA. American Journal of Ophthalmology 1985;100:183-7.
 Conclusion: Prevention of Eye Injuries
 Automotive manufacturers can use the assembled
data to optimize the design of airbags such that
projectiles produced during airbag deployments or
collisions do not injure occupants’ eyes.
6. Rajabali F et al. Unintentional injuries in BC: trends and patterns among children and youth 2005, BCIRPU Report
Figure 3 - C-spine fractures
occur at speeds over 3m/s i.e.
diving into shallow water or in
automotive rollovers.
Figure 4 - Drop tower used to
induce burst fracture injuries
7. Christensen L, Reid L, Booster seat law in BC-at what compromise? 2002 ICBC& BCAA presentation
Acknowledgements:
Financial support in the form of research grants from GM Canada (PACE), and Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Rick Hansen Man in Motion Fund, are gratefully
acknowledged.
Contact: Shelina Babul, PhD, Tel: (604) 875-3682, Fax: (604) 875-3569, Email: [email protected]
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Injury Biomechanics is centrally involved in understanding the mechanisms of human injury. This information is
used to prevent injuries or advance medical treatments. Examples of injury prevention devices that
biomechanical engineers have been centrally involved in include the development and advancement of seat belts,
airbags and helmets. In the realm of injury treatment biomechanical engineers have contributed to novel
treatments for spinal cord injury by helping to improve the concordance between the injuries suffered by human
patients and those used to develop new treatments in rodent models.
The objective of this presentation will be to outline research underway at the Injury Biomechanics Laboratory at
the University of British Columbia. The important collaborative relationship between biomechanical engineers
and provincial and national injury prevention organizations such as the British Columbia Injury Prevention Unit
will be highlighted.
Theme 1 - Eye Injury: Injury due to small projectiles contacting the eye at high velocity can be devastating
because of potential loss of vision. Ocular injury tolerance data can aid automotive design by recommending
limits on the allowable speed, mass, or shape of projectiles associated with airbag deployment or vehicle damage
during motor vehicle collisions. It was determined that little quantitative information is known about the
tolerance for eye injury for projectiles of the size, shape, or mass characteristic of automobile collisions. In this
research, biomechanical engineers can design and perform experiments to quantitatively determine the tolerance
of the eye to injury using cadaveric eyes and simulated projectiles propelled by an air cannon.
Theme 2 – Spinal Cord Injury: Spinal cord injury is a devastating injury with enormous associated societal and
financial burdens. The objective of this research is to quantitatively determine the mechanical deformation that
the spinal cord undergoes during various kinds of common spinal injuries such as diving injuries or injuries
associated with automotive rollovers. This is done using cadaveric spinal segments and a sensor placed in the
spinal canal which can be used to measure spinal cord deformation during spinal injury.
Collaboration with physicians and epidemiologists as well as researchers with other expertise is essential in these
fields as it provides a quantitative understanding of the importance of the research question in the Canadian
context (epidemiology) as well as an understanding of the clinical presentation and treatment of affected
individuals.