• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.226-237
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• 2019

Purpose: This study investigated the characteristics of adult patients who had fallen from a height and presented to an emergency room (ER) according to gender and intentionality, with the goal of reducing the harm caused by these injuries. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted of fall-from-height patients aged ≥19 years from the in-depth surveillance study of injured patients visiting ERs conducted under the supervision of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2011 to 2016. Patterns were analyzed according to gender and intentionality. Results: There were 29,838 men (68.5%) and 13,734 women (31.5%), with mean ages of 50.3±15.7 years and 57.2±19.9 years, respectively. The most common height of the fall was ≥1 m to 4 m in men (n=15,863; 53.2%) and <1 m in women (n=7,293; 53.1%). The most common location where the fall occurred was the workplace for men (n=10,500 male; 35.2%) and residential facilities for women (n=7,755; 56.5%). Most falls from height were unintentional (n=41,765; 97.1% vs. n=1,264; 2.9% for intentional falls). Suicide was the most frequent reason for intentional falls, and the age group of 19-30 years predominated in this category (n=377; 29.9%). For intentional falls, the most common interval before presentation to the ER was 0-6 hours (n=370; 29.3%) and the most common height was ≥4 m (n=872; 69.0%). Conclusions: Among men, falls from height most often occurred from ≥1 m to 4 m, at the workplace, and during the course of paid work, whereas among women, they were most common from <1 m, in residential facilities, and during daily activities. Intentional falls most often occurred with the purpose of suicide, in the age group of 19-30 years, with an interval of 0-6 hours until treatment, from ≥4 m, and in residential facilities. Alcohol consumption was more common in intentional falls.

• Advances in pediatric surgery
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.115-122
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• 2005

Falls from a height are the leading cause of injury and death among urban children. This study describes the incidence, clinical characteristics, and treatment results of children under 15 year of age who fell from a height of more than one meter and were admitted for abdominal injury. The medical records of 585 consecutive patients treated between January 1997 and December 2003 at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital were analyzed retrospectively. The falling heights were 1 to 31.2 meters, and 28 patients(4.8 %) suffered from blunt abdominal trauma. The male to female ratio was 2.1: 1. The median age of the victims was 5.5 years, and the median height fallen was 3 meters. Fifteen patients (53.6 %) were injured during the summer and seventy-nine percent of the falls occurred between noon and 9 pm. Eighteen (64.3 %) of falls occurred in residential place and 19(67.8 %) of patients arrived at the emergency department within 30 minutes of the accident. Only 16 patients (57.1 %) complained of abdominal pain. Liver injuries were found in 12(42.9 %), spleen injuries in 5(17.9 %), kidney injuries 3(10.7 %), pancreatic injuries in 1(3.6 %) and nonspecific abdominal injuries in 9(32.1 %) cases. Increased SGOT and SGPT were found in 23(82.2 %) and 18(64.3 %) cases. Eleven patients (39.3 %) had associated head injuries. Limb injuries were present in 17.9% and thoracic injuries in 7.1%. Twenty-five patients (89.3 %) recovered without operation. The median length of hospital stay was 6 days (2 -20 days). Despite the absence of abdominal symptoms or shock, falls from a height in children may carry significant intra-abdominal organ injuries. The height falling could not predict the degree of the abdominal injury. For the evaluation of potential abdominal injuries, CT scan should be utilized.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.155-160
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• 2005

Background: Falls are a major cause of emergency room visits. Injury secondary to falls is a largely preventable public health problem. This study helps to better understand the epidemiology of falls from height, then develops prevention strategies. Methods: We reviewed the medical records of 192 patients admitted to the emergency department of Konyang university hospital with a history of falls from January 2004 to December 2004. Collected data included the patient's age, gender, height of fall and method, outcome of management, Injury Severity Score(ISS). Results: According to the characteristics of height of fall, the ISS was higher when the patient fell from height of 2 meters or more($13.79{\pm}12.17$) than not($8.13{\pm}9.25$)(p<0.05). There were positive correlation between mean age and ISS(p<0.001, r=0.7). To gender, ISS was higher in the male group($12.73{\pm}11.78$) than the female group($8.48{\pm}10.00$)(p<0.05). Conclusion: Falls often results from multiple concurrent problems including environmental and behavioral factors. This study suggests that we need to improve the occupational environment, especially above 2meters, for decreasing injuries of fall from heights. Also we consider the prevention of children from injuries of fall from heights.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.49-57
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• 2012

Proportion of falling from height accident at construction work accounts for more than 40%, and the number of injuries is getting increased. So without considering falling from height, we can say that it's hard to achieve our goal(accident prevention). Another critical point that we have to think about theses days is the fact that construction workers are getting older. To be specific, the number of workers who are above 50 years old accounts for 65.6% among the fatalities(2007~2011, KOSHA inspection). Accordingly, to effectively prevent construction accedents, especially falls from height, we need to focus on motion analysis of older construction workers and then make suitable measures for growing accident rates at construction work.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.79-88
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• 2019

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the peak torques of the knee and ankle joint and local stability of the lower extremity's joints, and muscle activation patterns of the lower extremity's muscles between fallers and non-fallers in the elderly women during walking. Method: Four elderly women (age: $74.5{\pm}5.2yrs.$; height: $152.1{\pm}5.6cm$; mass: $55.3{\pm}5.4kg$; preference walking speed: $1.19{\pm}0.06m/s$) who experienced falls within six months since experiment had been conducted (falls group) and thirty-six subjects ($74.2{\pm}3.09yrs.$; height: $153.6{\pm}4.9cm$; mass: $56.7{\pm}6.4kg$; preference walking speed: $1.24{\pm}0.10m/s$) who had no experience in falls (non-falls group) within this periods participated in this study. They were measured torque peaks of the knee and ankle joint using a Human Norm and while they were walking on a treadmill at their natural pace, kinematic variables and EMG signals were collected with using a 3-D motion capture system and a wireless EMG system, respectively. Lyapunov Exponent (LyE) was determined to observe the dynamic local stability of the lower extremity's joints, and muscles activation and their co-contraction index were also analysed from EMG signals. Hypotheses between falls and non-falls group were tested using paired t-test and Mann-Whitey. Level of significance was set at p<.05. Results: Local dynamic stability in the adduction-abduction movement of the knee joint was significantly lower in falling group than non-falling group (p<.05). Conclusion: In conclusion, muscles which act on the abduction-adduction movement of the knee joint need to be strengthened to prevent from potential falls during walking. However, a small number of samples for fallers make it difficult to generalize the results of this study.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.83-89
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• 2013

Occupational Safety and Health Act provides that industrial safety helmets are personal protective equipment(PPE) to protect heads against falls from a height. Relevant domestic regulations are distinguished and different from other countries' cases. This study investigated industrial safety helmet's protective purposes and characteristics related to falls and the notion of fall prevention. A comparative analysis of regulations on safety helmets and fall prevention as well as standards on safety helmet's impact test requirements is followed by a literature review. It is also suggested that the term "fall" related to safety helmets should be changed to "impact on the upper part of head" in domestic regulations and standards.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.155-163
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• 2016

Objective: This study aims to draw the characteristics of occupational accidents occurred in cabling work, and assess accident severity based on occupational injury data. Background: Accident factors and accident risk are different by the place of work in cabling work. Field managers require information on accident prevention that can be easily understood by workers. However, there has been a lack of studies that focus on cabling work in Korea. Method: This study classifies 450 injured persons caused in cabling work by process, and analyzes the characteristics of occupational injuries from the aspects of age, work experience and accident type. This study also analyzes accident frequency and severity of injury. Results: Results show that preparing/finishing (33.3%) was the most common type of cabling process in injuries, followed by maintenance (28.4%), routing/income (23.1%) and wiring/installation (15.1%) process. The critical incidents in the level of risk management were falls from height in the routing/incoming process, and falls from height in the maintenance process. And, incidents ranked as 'High' level of risk management were slips and trips, fall from height and vehicle incident in the preparing/finishing process, and fall from height in the wiring/installation process. Conclusion and Application: The relative frequency of accident and its severity by working process serve as important information for accident prevention, and are critical for determining priorities in preventive measures.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.96-101
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted in order to evaluate the epidemiological characteristics of?children with fall-down injuries according to age groups and to analyze the major trauma groups that were treated at the emergency room (ER). Methods: Among 1,222 children under age 6 who were treated at the ER from January 2008 to December 2009, a retrospective study was conducted through examination of medical records. The children were classified by age into 3 groups: infant, toddler, and pre-schooler. In each group, the differences between the causative factors that led to the fall-down injuries were analyzed. Also, ISS (Injury Severity Score) score above 4 was classified as major trauma, and an ISS score 0-1 was classified as a minor trauma. The relationship between major trauma and age group was also analyzed. Results: Through an analysis of child fall-down injuries, men (56.6%), toddler (47.3%), head-related symptoms (72.9%), furniture-related traumas (80.2%), and falls from less than a 1-m height (69.9%) were found to be common factors. Furthermore, in radiological studies, fractures and brain hemorrhages accounted for 16.9% of major traumas, and simple skull fractures were the most common (21.4%). Distributed according to age group, the factors relevant to fall injuries were fall height and head-related symptoms for infants, accident site, fall height and head-related symptoms for toddlers, and accident site for pre-schoolers (p<0.05). Also, headrelated symptoms and fall height were independent factors of major trauma in all age groups. However, major traumas (17.3%) were related to dumped trauma, fall height and accident site (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study was mainly about head-related injuries, and toddler were most common victims. The relevant factors for the major trauma were falling height for infants, accident site and falling height for toddlers, and accident site, falling height for pre-schoolers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.413-419
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• 1991

This study aims to evaluate the degree of malnutrition of children by three nutritional indicators-Weight for Age, Hight for Age, Weight for Height. The results are as follows; The average height and weight of children are much lower than Korea average height and weight. In terms of Weigh for Age, 20-40% of the samples belongs to below-2 standard deviation from the mean of reference group. 90% of the samples falls into the region below the mean. The standard deviation score indicates negative sign for eighty to ninety percent of the samples. The malnutrition of the samples is also confirmed in terms of Height for Age. In terms of Weight for Height, the mean of the samples is not significantly different from that of the reference group. Tests of the nutritional status under basis of three nutritional indicators show that approximately 50% of the samples had suffered from malnutrition and 17% of the samples have suffered from malnutrition.

• Journal of Trauma and Injury
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.12-17
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• 2009

Purpose: In this study, the prognostic significance of the Injury Severity Score (ISS) and the height of fall in free-fall patients were investigated. Methods: The medical records of 179 victims of falls from a height who were brought alive to the Emergency Department of Gyeongsang National University Hospital between January 2003 and December 2007 were analyzed. The age, the sex of the patients, the rate of admission, the hospital stay, the site of injury, the severity of injury, the rate of surgery, the site of the fall and the presence of alcohol intoxication were evaluated by using a retrospective review of the medical records. Injury severity was measured by using the ISS. Patients were categorized into four subgroups according to the height from where they had fallen. The data were statistically analyzed with using SPSS ver. 10.0. Results: The admission rates for the subgroups with falls of less than 3 stories were significantly lower than those for the subgroups with higher heights of falls (70.7% vs. 100%, p<0.05). These two subgroups showed statistically significant differences in mean hospital stay ($17.11{\pm}24.88$ vs. $56.73{\pm}49.21$, p<0.05), rate of operation (30.6% vs. 53.8%, p<0.05), and mean ISS ($6.86{\pm}4.97$ vs. $13.96{\pm}9.14$, p<0.05). In the correlation analysis, the ISS and the mean hospital stay showed the highest correlation with correlation coefficient of 0.666. Conclusion: In this retrospective analysis of 179 free-fall patients, we evaluated the prognostic factors affecting the outcomes for the free-fall patients. The patients who had fallen from heights of 3 stories or higher showed statistically significant higher rates of admission, longer durations of hospital stay, higher ISSs, and higher operation rates. The most accurate factor in predicting the length of hospital stay was the ISS.