Television Related Injuries On the Rise Among Children
ByA new study shows an increase in the amount of children sustaining injuries from falling televisions, Reuters reported.
The reason many children are susceptible to these types of injuries, lead author Dr. Gary Smith said, was because they cannot react quick enough to the large device sliding towards them.
"These are occurring primarily to younger children," Smith, of the Child Injury Prevention Alliance, said. "When (the TVs) start coming toward them, they don't realize the danger."
The data suggests a child is taken to the hospital every 45 minutes due to a TV-related injury. In an emergency department database, the researchers found that 381,000 children and teenagers were treated in U.S. emergency rooms for injuries sustained in TV incidents from 1990 to 2011.
The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, called previous studies on the subject out of date and said they were based mostly on small case studies. Smith's study took into account newer and larger televisions, as well as the growing average amount of TVs in people's homes.
Boys sustained most injuries and 64 percent of the children injured were less than five years old. Two-years-olds had the highest rate of injury and included six deaths. Children most often sustained injuries to the head and neck, with cuts and bruises being the most popular type of abrasion.
"What we're finding is when those second and third TVs are being brought into these homes, the (older and bulkier units) are being moved and put in other parts of the home that are unsafe," said Smith.
In other words, when a family brings home a new flat screen and secures it into the wall or places it on its stand, the older model goes to a part of the house that did not previously have a television. It could be placed in a child's playroom or an older sibling's room on a quasi support that may not be stable.
"I think there needs to be much more education to the public and I feel that can be done. Secondly, I think there needs to be legislation or regulation to have TVs secured to surfaces," said Dr. Marvin Platt, who has researched TV injuries in the past.
Smith said any type of television, flat screen or a tube model, should be secured to a wall. Anyone looking for more information are encouraged to visit Smith's organization's website PreventChildInjury.org.