Skeletal Trauma Analysis by Nicholas V. Passalacqua Christopher W. Rainwater

Author:Nicholas V. Passalacqua, Christopher W. Rainwater
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

In addition to measuring the amount of force required to cause a skull fracture, Allsop et al. (1991) investigated the effect of impact surface area on fracture characteristics. The authors impacted 31 unembalmed cadaver heads in the temporo-parietal area with two types of flat rigid impactors. One impactor was a circular plate that measured 2.54 cm in diameter. The other impactor was a rectangular plate that measured 5 × 10 cm in width and length. Fracture forces for the small circular plate ranged between 2.5 and 10.0 kN with an average of 5.2 kN. Fracture forces for the rectangular plate ranged between 5.8 and 17.0 kN with an average of 12.4 kN. The results of the study demonstrated a relationship between the impact area and the force necessary to create a fracture.

Again expending on Gurdjian’s work, Kroman et al. (2011) tested the theory that skull fractures initiate from a point away from the impact site and propagate toward it. Using high-speed video and load cell output, the researchers captured the propagation of fractures and maximum load force as crania were struck with an impactor. They placed five unembalmed, previously frozen cadaver heads in a drop tower structure and struck each with a mass weighing 8.58 kg on the anterior parietal region. The drop distance of the mass was between 1.96 and 2.82 m. The drop tower was designed so that the floor supporting the specimen broke away with minimal force increase. This design enabled the contra-lateral side of the skull to be unaffected by an opposite reactive force. However, one of the specimens was placed on a rigid surface in order to investigate the bone’s response to an opposing reactive force. All soft tissue was removed from the head, except for a patch of skin and muscle at the impact site. Exposing nearly all the cranium allowed the progressing fractures to be recorded on film, while the small amount of soft tissue maintained the influence of the soft tissue. The resulting fractures varied for each specimen and are described in Table 10.1. Evaluation of the high-speed video showed that all fractures radiated out from the point of impact and no out-bending was observed. This finding is directly contrary to Gurdjian’s work.

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