[Clinical examinations for the traffic accident patients]

Traffic accident is a leading cause of unintentional death and about six-thousands annually died in Japan. As about one-million of persons suffer from traffic injuries, most of them seek medical attention. Therefore, medical staffs have to find the injuries accurately and treat immediately. Furthermore, the cause of accident should also be considered; why the accident was occurred, human error of the driver? To solve these problems, clinical examinations were needed. Medical staffs have to understand the characteristics of the traffic injuries: severe and multiple blunt injuries, popular injuries can be estimated with considering the pattern of the accident. Because some of the accidents are occurred when the driver is under the influence of alcohol and other drugs, screening of these subjects should be performed. Because the public is largely unaware of the preventable nature of traffic injuries, in addition to diagnose and treat accurately, we medical staffs have to attend on the primary prevention of the traffic injuries.