Introduction to Minor Injuries

Damian Roland, Consultant and Senior Honorary Lecturer in Paediatric Emergency Medicine at Leicester Hospitals and Leicester University will guide you through your next topic, minor injuries. We discussed head injury in a previous session so we won’t be covering that here. Minor injuries are really common and usually they’re self limiting and not that severe, but it’s really important to remember that they can be extremely distressing to the parents, a brief loss of consciousness, lots of blood, lots of pain, all promote anxiety.

This session is designed to discuss common injuries that happen in the home, and the important parts of how to manage children and their pain and distress when they have an injury. Limb threatening injuries are rare. It’s really unlikely that you will see a limb threatening injury, what’s much more likely is that you’re going to need to deal with the consequences of pain and we will talk through the best approach’s to doing that.

Other common accidental injuries are burns. Many children in their quest to explore the world put themselves in danger of burns, and it is important to be able to apply timely first aid to reduce scarring and help healing. Burns can be quite concerning both to parents but also to health care professionals and we’ll give you a strategy to work out the percentage distribution of the burn and the best initial management strategies.

Remember that not all injuries are accidental, and some injuries will be inflicted on children by those who care for them. Whilst this is a situation no one wants to find themselves in, you must never forget to have this at the back of your mind when dealing with any child. We all have a responsibility to be aware and act on any concerns we may have.

So hopefully we will give you a useful overall framework in how to deal with minor injuries in children and in young people.

Let’s have a look at our next scenario.

The 999 Call

Now consider this. A 999 call has come through from a worried grandparent who saw his grandson fall off the trampoline in his garden. He has hurt his elbow. It is sore, swollen and he cannot move it. He has also hit his head.

A paramedic team is dispatched, what might they expect to find and what clinical features will they look out for?