[Physical and sexual child abuse]

Child abuse may result in dramatic short and longtime damage of children's physical and emotional well being. This underscores the clinician's special responsibility to contribute a sound professional and scientific approach to the multiprofessional diagnosis and intervention in suspected child abuse cases. The approach is to correlate the probability of a given finding with the history and comparing it to biomechanical principles. Of concern are especially all serious injuries with an alleged trivial or inadequate for age mechanism, missing, vague or changing patterns of explanation, injuries of different age, delay of medical care and allegations by independent observers or even the child. Exact documentation of all medical examinations is the basis of any forensic expertise if child abuse is to be considered. This paper ist dealing with morhological findings following various kinds of violence which can often be observed in connection with child abuse, as well as the interpretation of characteristic patterns of findings. Furthermore, practicable procedures after diagnosing child abuse ar being discussed on the basis of legal terms.