Socioeconomic Impact of Circular Saw Injuries in Post-Retirement Population in a Regional Unit

Hazim Ahmed^1, , Amal Sharaf², Julie Mcglaughlin³ and Haitham Khashaba⁴

¹Plastic surgery department, Guys and Saint Thomas trust, London, United Kingdom

²Plastic surgery department, Royal Victoria Infirmary NHS, Newcastle United Kingdom

³physiotherapy department, University hospital of North, Durham, United Kingdom

⁴plastic surgery department, County Durham and Darlington NHS, Durham, United Kingdom

Cite this paper:
Hazim Ahmed, Amal Sharaf, Julie Mcglaughlin and Haitham Khashaba. Socioeconomic Impact of Circular Saw Injuries in Post-Retirement Population in a Regional Unit. Global Journal of Surgery. 2024; 12(1):4-7. doi: 10.12691/js-12-1-2

Abstract

Due to disease control measures, the number of elderly people increases in the community making them more actively participating in different kinds of activities. DIY-related hand injuries are common and can be severe and disabling. Recent statistical figures from NHS Digital show that there were more than 5,600 admissions in England for powered hand-tool hand injuries, and more than 2,700 for non-powered hand-tool injuries, between 2020-2021. In the Northeast region, we noticed increasing DIY-related hand injuries among older age groups. 14% of the injuries among the elderly seen at emergency departments are related to the upper limb trauma, while 29% of them related to the hand and wrist. The mode and level of injury are important determining factors for the functional outcome. Distal and clean-cut injuries carry far better prognosis than proximal and crush injuries. Patients who underwent surgical intervention especially replantation or revascularization, may be in need for secondary procedures. This will depend on the extent, mechanism, level of injury, adequacy of soft tissue coverage and post operative rehabilitation. Several factors may help in decision making regarding the need for replantation or revascularization. These factors include ischemia time, mechanism of injury, level of amputation, patients’ age and profession, and other concomitant life-threatening injuries Replantation, revascularization became more successful due to recent advances in microsurgical team. Return of function after replantation is an important factor to determine if the replantation was saucerful or not. Those patients may require secondary procedures.

Keywords:
Circular saw retirement hand injury socioeconomic DIY

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Hans-Eric Rosberg, Lars B. Dahlin (2018). An increasing number of hand injuries in an elderly population – a retrospective study over a 30-year period. BMC geriatrics. 18: 68.
[2]	Matthias Frank, Juliane Hecht, Matthias Napp, et all (2010). Mind your hand during the energy crunch: Functional Outcome of Circular Saw Hand Injuries. Journal of trauma management and outcome. 4: 11.
[3]	Nasir khan, Mamoon Rashd, et al (2019). Functional outcomes of secondary procedures in upper extremity replantation and revascularization. 2,3,6: 8.
[4]	Olof kringstad, et al. (2019) hand injuries in an older population. BMC musculoskeletal disorder. 20: 245.
[5]	Franco Franchignoni et al. (2022). Minimal clinically important difference of the disabilities of the arm, shoulders and hand outcome measure (DASH) and its shortened version (Quick DASH). Journal of orthopaedic sports physical therapy.