• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.27 no.3 s.47
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• pp.447-463
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• 1994

Despite the public health importance of injury and poisoning in terms of its high mortality and incidence, epidemiologic information to be utilized are scarce in Korea. This study was carried out in 1990 on a representative sample population (about 55,000 persons) along with the 6th National Tuberculosis Prevalence Survey in order to estimate the magnitude of injury and poisoning occurrence and to identify its epidemiologic characteristics which can be aided for establishing preventive strategy. Pre-tested and structured Questionnaire was used by trained interviewer to collect data including general information of the person, various information on the injury and poisoning during the past one year such as time and place of its occurrence, its nature and external causes, type of medical institute attended, duration of treatment and outcome of the accident occured. In analysis of the data collected incidence rates per 1000 persons by sex, age group and its nature as well as external causes, and relative frequencies were calculated. The result obtained are as followings; 1. The incidence rate per 1000 was 30 for both sexes, 39 for male and 22 for female, male being 1.8 times more frequent than female. Age adjusted incidences were not much different from the crude rates. Age group specific rate curve showed bimodal shape in both sexes, small peaks in preschool children and higher peaks in older ages. The incidence rate per 1000 people by area was highest in Jeon-bug province (57/1000) and the lowest in Daegu city(11/1000). 2. The place where the injuries occured were road in 46%, within the boundary of house in 25%, and working place in 12% The injuries and poisoning had occured more frequently during the months from March to August of the year than other months. 3. The relatively frequent injuries by its nature were contusion with intact skin surface (19%), fracture of upper limb (13%), open wound of head, neck and trunk (12%) and fracture of lower limb (11%) among males; contusion with intact skin surface (28%), sprains and strains of joints and adjacent muscle (14%), fracture of upper limb (10%) and fracture of lower limb (9%) among females. Higher incidence rate among males than females were fracture of skull (4.5 times), open wound and fractures of limbs ($2{\sim}3$ times). Age specific rate of injuries and poisoning by its nature showed increasing pattern by age in fractures of upper and lower limbs and sprains & strains of joints whereas the age group of 30's showed highest incidence in open wounds of upper limb. Fractures of radius and ulna in upper limb, fractures of tibia & fibula and ankle in lower limb were most frequent among fractures of upper and lower limbs. The frequent injuries among sprains and strains of joints and adjacent muscles were that of ankle, foot and back, and among open wound were that of head and fingers. 4. Relative frequency of injuries and poisoning by external causes showed following order : other accidents (25%), accidental falls (23%), motor vehicle accident (22%) and other road vehicle accident (14%) among males and accidental falls (37%), motor vehicle accident (24%) and other accident (18%) among females. The external causes revealing higher incidences among males than females, were other road vehicle accident (4.8 times), vehicle accident not elsewhere classifiable (4.4 times), accidental poisoning (4.4 times), accidents due to natural and environmental factors (2.8 times), and sucide & self-inflicted injuries (2.8 times). Age specific incidence by external causes for frequent injuries showed that incidence of other accident steadily increased from 10's till age 50's; motor vehicle traffic accident increased from age 20's and dropped after age 60's; on the other hand accidental fall increased strikingly by age. The most frequent external causes among motor vehicle traffic accidents was motor vehicle traffic accident involving collision with pedstrain (69%), pedal cycle accident (30%) and other road vehicle accident (71%) among other road vehicle accidents; falls on same level from slipping, tripping or standing (44%) and other falls from one level to another among accidental falls; accidents caused by machinary (32%) for male and striking against or struck accidentally by objects or person for female among other accidents. 5. Seventy nine percent of the injuries and poisonings were treated in general hospital or hospital/clinic. The duration of treatment ranged from a few days to 123 weeks; the majority(52%) took under 2 weeks, 36% for $3{\sim}8$ weeks and 4% over 21 weeks. 6. The accident resulted in full recovery of normal healthy state in 62%, residual functional defects in 21% and on process of treatment in 16%.

• The Journal of Korean Medicine Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and Dermatology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.87-93
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• 2001

Object : This study was focused on finding out the better method of medical treatment of concussion after whiplash injury. Methods : This study has been carried out for two cases of concussion after whiplash injury which had been hospitalized at the Kangnam Oriental medical Hospital of the Dongguk University Results and conclusions : The concussion is caused by whiplash injury about $47\%. In the symptoms of concussion, there are lightheadedness, dizziness, neck pain, headache, photophobia, phonophobia, anamnesis disorder, concentration disorder, tinnitus, irritability, etc. It is considered more important that the treatment of nausea and vomiting than the removal of stagnation of blood. Oriental medical treatments including of herb-medicine, acupuncture, moxibustion, cupping, chuna, taping have more economic favor and rapid effects than the others. so we report on two cases.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.9-18
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• 2011

Objectives : This study was performed to evaluate the effects of the acupuncture therapy in combination with Soyeom pharmacopuncture therapy on acute whiplash injury by traffic accident. And thermal change of posterior neck and shoulder was observed. Methods : The clinical study was conducted to 20 cases of acute whiplash injury patients who had been admitted in Dept. of Acupuncture and Moxibusion, Woosuk University Hospital from December 1, 2010 to May 31, 2011. The patients were randomly divided into two groups. In one group(test group), patients were treated with the acupuncture therapy in combination with Soyeom pharmacopuncture therapy. And in the other group(control group), patients were treated with acupuncture therapy only. To estimate the efficacy of treatments, visual analog scale(VAS), neck disability index(NDI) of posterior neck pain were checked. And also thermal change of posterior neck and shoulder was observed by digital infrared thermographic imaging(DITI). Results : Both group represented effective improvement in VAS and NDI of posterior neck pain. Especially, test group is more effective than control group in VAS comparison, statistically. In test group, temperature of posterior neck and shoulder was decreased after treatments. But there was no significant difference between two groups on thermographic change. Conclusions : Through this study, Soyeom pharmacopuncture therapy is considered to be effective for reducing pain in acute whiplash injury patients. And after Soyeom pharmacopuncture therapy, temperature of posterior neck and shoulder show a tendency to decrease.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.797-807
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• 2009

In a case of an automobile rear-end collision, scale of the collision which are the extent of vehicle damage and the injury of the passenger is affected by the speed change. Based on the photographic interpretation of the actual accident cases in the Seoul and the Incheon area, this study measured the depth of crush and calculated the speed change from the statement data of the accident and speed, and also injury data such as diagnosis, hospitalization days are collected. The period of hospitalization and diagnostics claimed proves to have no statistical correlation with the depth of vehicle crush and speed change. Based on the statistical analysis from this study and previous foreign studies, we found that there have been 78.1% of personal accidents didn't reach the injury threshold. There should be objective information on the scale of accident accepting the claims-to-be-injured in the future, and application of injury threshold level suggested are considered to be very useful.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.842-846
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• 1995

Recently, the trauma patients have been markedly increasing due to the vast increase of traffic accident, industrial disaster, incidental accident and violence. The authors have analysed of 22 patients of thoracic injuries combined with abdominal injuries and summarized as follows. The ratio of male to female was 3.4:1 and their age distribution was from 5 years to 68 years and mean age was 34.4 years. The etiologies of injury were traffic accident, stab wound, fall down and violence. Associated injuries were fractures, bowel perforation, kidney rupture, head injury, liver laceration, spleen rupture and so forth. The modes of treatment were closed thoracostomy, repair of diaphragm, ruptured bowel repair, explo-thoracotomy, splenectomy, hepatic lobectomy in this order of frequency. The postoperative complications were atelectasis, wound infection, pneumonia, empyema, acute renal failure, respiratory failure and bleeding. The mortality rate was 13.6% [3/22 and the causes of death were respiratory failure 1 case, acute renal failure 1 case and hypovolemic shock 1 case.

• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.155-162
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• 2001

This is a clinical study on patients who had visitied the Emergency Room of Pusan National University Hospital and then been treated in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery during recent 5 years, from 1992 to 1996. The results were as follow ; 1. The total number of patients was 2,680 and the ratio of male to female was 1.96:1, The highest monthly incidence was shown in September(12.1%) and October(10.5%) and the age distribution peaks was the third decade(24.3%), followed by the first(23.1%) and the fourth decade(17.2%). 2. Soft tissue injury group(29.1%) was the most prevalent, followed by tooth injury group(16.1%), facial bone injury group (16.0%), toothache group(11.2%), socket bleeding group(11.1%), infection group(9.8%) and TMJ dislocation group(5.9%). 3. The percentage of in-patients and out-patient were 21.6% and 78.4%, respectively. The frequent causes of admission were facial bone fracture(73.8%), infection(20.8%) and soft tissue injury(4.8%) in order. However, soft tissue injury was the most frequent cause in out-patient, followed by tooth injury(20.5%), toothache(14.3%), socket bleeding(14.2%) and TMJ dislocation(7.6%). 4. In the facial bone injury group, the mandibular fractures(70.6%) showed the highest incidence, followed by zygomatic bone and arch fractures(7.5%), maxillary bone fractures(4.0%) and nasal bone fractures(4.0%). 5. In the mandibular bone fracture, the most common location was symphysis(36.7%), followed by the mandibular angles(33.1%) and the condyles(21.8%). 6. The common causes of facial bone fractures were violence, fall and traffic accident in order. 7. The common causes of soft tissue injury were fall down, fight and traffic accident in order and the highest incidence was observed in infants before the age of 10 years(44.0%). 8. In the group of tooth injury, tooth luxation(38.5%) showed the highest incidence followed by tooth fracture(33.2%) and tooth loss(17.1%). The common causes of tooth injury were fall, fight and traffic accident in order. 9. In infected patients group, the ratio of in-patients to out-patients was 1 : 1.28, Buccal(24,7%) and infraorbital space abscess(23.3%) showed the highest incidence. 10. The pain caused by dental caries(39.0%) and pericoronitis(26.6%) showed high incidence in the toothache group. 11. The high incidence was observed during third(34.0%) and fourth (24.5%) decades in TMJ dislocation group. 12. In the group of socket bleeding patients, 92% was post-operative hemorrhage and 8% was accompanied with other systemic hemorrhagic diseases.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.195-200
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• 2014

Occupational fatal injury rate per 10,000 population of Korea is still higher among the OECD member countries. To prevent fatal injuries, the causes of accidents including human error should be analyzed and then appropriate countermeasures should be established. There was an severe converter furnace accident resulting in five people death by chocking in 2013. Although the accident type of the furnace accident was suffocation, many safety problems were included before reaching the death of suffocation. If the safety problems are reviewed throughly, the alternative measures based on the review would be very useful in preventing similar accidents. In this study, we investigated the converter furnace accident by using human error analysis and accident scenario analysis. As a result, it was found that the accident was caused by some human errors, inappropriate task sequence and lack of control in coordinating work by several subordinating companies. From the review of this case, the followings are suggested: First, systematic human error analysis should be included in the investigation of fatal injury accidents. Second, multi man-machine accident scenario analyis is useful in most of coordinating work. Third, the more provision of information on system state will lessen human errors. Fourth, the coordinating control in safety should be performed in the work conducting by several different companies.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.61-70
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• 1997

This study is undertaken to investigate the differences of accident characteristics between occupational deaths and nonfatal injuries in overall industry of Korea. The national statistics of industrial accidents in the years 1991-1994 were extracted from the annual publications of Ministry of Labor. To make the statistical comparisons for the accident characteristics, we derived the destributions of occupational deaths and injuries in terms of injured person's age, work experience, tiem of accident, activity at time of accident, accident type, injury type, injured part of body, and agency of accident. The results show that the distributions of the occupational deaths are significantly different from those of the nonfatal injuries in all characteristics investigated in this study. These findings indicate that the accident prevention programs should be developed and implemented by taking into account the characteristics of working environments based on accident analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.5-13
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• 1992

If zero-accident movement is to be successful, the objective goal period should be surely obtainable, and much more in our country where frequency rate of injury are remarkably fluc-tuating. However In our country, as far as we know, no method to establish a reasonable zero-accident goal period is guaranteed. In thls paper, a new establishing-method of reasonable goal period for individual industry with considering recent accident trend is presented. A mathematical model for industrial accidents generation was analyzed, and a stochastic process model for the accident generation inteual was formulated. This model could tell the accident generation rate in future by understanding the accident tendency through the time-series analysis and search for the distribution of numbers of accidents and accident interval. On the basis of this, the forecasting method of goal achievement probability by the size and the establishment method of reasonable goal period were developed.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.760-765
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• 1989

Cardiac injury remains one of the most spectacular injuries which the present day cardiac surgeon is called upon to treat. Eight consecutive patients with penetrating or blunt injury to the heart underwent operation at the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Masan Koryo General Hospital from April 22 88 to April 6 89. l. Among the 8 cases of cardiac injured patients, 7 cases were penetrating injury [stab injury] and one case was blunt injury [traffic accident]. 2. The site of cardiac injury was LV mainly and the next RV, SVC-RA junction in order. 3. The all patients were admitted to our hospital via ER and most of cases, CVP was elevated above 15 cmH2O and 7 of 8 cases were shock state. 4. In 6 of 8 cases revealed cardiomegaly in simple chest X * ray. 5. 7 cases were operated through the median sternotomy, 1 case the right anterolateral thoracotomy. 6. Associated injuries in penetrating cardiac injury were hemothorax, pneumothorax, sternal fracture, lung laceration, LAD transaction in blunt injury, hemoperitoneum.