Electric burns and disability

Forty-nine cases of electric burns with various factors responsible for accidents were studied. The stress was given on the study of disability after electric burns. Different complications of electric burns including morbidity and mortality were noted. Proper training of personnel in handling the electrical goods will reduce the incidence of electrical burns significantly. Better warning signals may also help to reduce the incidence of electric burns. Electric burns constitute one of the crippling accidents as the deep tissue destruction results from such injury. This leads to high incidence of upper extremity amputations, necessitating long unemployment and extensive new job training and rehabilitation. A retrospective and prospective study was undertaken among 49 patients of electric burns. In this series about 40% patients have become permanently disabled and 21% severely disabled. The mortality rate was 70.2%. The major disability was due to amputations required to the patient. The incidence of amputation was 34.6%. The mortality rate was 10.2%. Seventeen patients required 28 amputations. Hence, the major problem in electrical burns is due to permanent disability because of amputations, ultimately giving rise to the problem of rehabilitation mostly in young working people. Upper limb was burnt in 96% of patients. Hence, it further aggravates the severity in electrical burn injury because it is a working limb.