By Rania Moussly, Staff reporter
Published 00:00 22 November 2009
Dubai Medical College students share findings on head trauma during a University of Sharjah medical conference
Motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries in Dubai according to research findings of Dubai Medical College (DMC) students. Falls and assaults account for the second and third highest number of such injuries, the students said at the Fourth UAE Medical Students Conference held at the University of Sharjah last week.
The five female medical students assessed patients admitted to the Rashid Hospital Emergency Unit for four months, following which they reported 1,330 head injury cases with 13 fatalities in their findings.
"When we investigated if any research had been done in the UAE on head injuries there was none," said Nida Rashid, a fifth year student, explaining the focus on head trauma.
Study results
Under the supervision of the head of the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Rashid Hospital Dr Raees Ahmad, the students put together a report titled "A prospective review of the incidences, causes and outcomes of traumatic brain injury in Dubai". They will publish their final results after running the study for a year.
The students classified head injury patients into mild, moderate and severe categories according to the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) that objectively records the conscious state of a person. They then followed up on each individual over 28 days.
Their study revealed that 96 per cent of the patients admitted with head injuries were classified as mild while three per cent were severe. A majority of both the mild and severe cases was male.
The leading nationality of those suffering moderate head injuries was Pakistani males between the ages of 20 and 30; the leading cause reported as traffic accidents.
Almost 50 per cent of severe head injury cases resulted from road accidents; 22 per cent were pedestrians involved in collisions. The leading age group for severe head injuries was the 30-40 range.
"One of the main things we were interested in was the mode of injury and how we can prevent it," said Zeynab Mouziri.
She said many of the pedestrians injured and killed were children. She gave Campus Notes examples of cases where people, mostly labourers and construction workers, suffer falls. "Let us do something for them," she said. "Let us educate them so they can have more safety."
Accident figures
50% of severe head injuries are caused by road accidents
19,493 trauma patients admitted to the emergency room at Rashid Hospital in four months
1,330 of the patients sent to the emergency room suffered head injuries