Bicycle Helmets as a Protection Against Severe Head Injuries - Essay Example

Author (year)

Purpose

Sample/Number of Participants (provide descriptive statistics

Design/Level of Evidence

Findings (provide any inferential statistics)

Limitations

Rodgers, 2010

A meta-analysis of sixteen articles. The study considered personal injury as well as the use of helmet information spanning a decade from 1988- 1998.

The use of bicycle helmets

Injury to the brain, head, and facial parts following within the definition of reviewed academic journals and fatal ones.

Hitherto protective influences among the people using helmets vis-à-vis those who do not use them for the brain, head, fatal, and facial injuries. Injury to the brain, 0.41 (0.25, 0.66),

Statistical methods and selection techniques come out clearly. Outcomes offer precise evidence of helmet advantages.

Using the helmets minimizes the risk of brain, head, as well as facial injury and death in general.

Spaite, 2011

Forthcoming research on seventy-five cyclists admitted in the hospital, 1994. Goppingen Germany.

Use of helmets while riding bicycles.

Brain and injury to the head as well as death. No deaths were reported in people with helmets while two appeared in the unhelmeted groups.

Crude OR=0.56 related to the risk of injury to the head while comparing those with helmets and those without. Those without helmets averaged 73% with skull fractures on the head beside intracranial injuries.

Cyclists were admitted to health dispensaries.

Thompson, 2012

The prospective group with nested case-control research. Children with age three to fifteen received treatments on tertiary care in emergency rooms at Calgary in Canada for three years from nineteen ninety-one to nineteen ninety-three.

The use of bicycle helmets

Injuries on the head affecting both people using helmets and those who do not use them. Reported cases included among others severe head injuries referred to by medical practitioners as fracture, concussion, and crush.

The use of helmets by cyclists cut down the risk of severe head injuries by 69% in comparison to those who do not (OR=0.33 95% CI. 11-88).

There is no major difference in severe injuries of all forms for non-helmeted users versus helmeted users.

Strong potential effects of helmets for severe injuries to the head. Protective influences of helmet received undue attention since it was excluded of ICU cases.

Summary                                                                                                                                                   

All the research studies explained here-in share one conclusion that regardless of the form, bicycle helmets offer significant protection against severe head injuries for people riding bicycles of all ages when accidents take place among them serious crashes with cars. Records involving deaths resulting from severe head injuries caused by accidents are alarming with the United States alone having one thousand and three hundred deaths annually. Professionals on road safety as well as health practitioners recommend the use of helmets for cyclists (Spaite, 2011). However, it is necessary to highlight that their effectiveness remains unconvincing especially in parts of the face such as the mouth. The case-control research for instance involved two hundred and thirty-five people having injuries on the head resulting from bicycle accidents. These people sought emergency treatment from one of the major hospitals within the specified period of study.

The other studies involved patients who sought medical care but did not suffer from head injuries. Excluded from these groups but also formed part of the study was a large number of patients to have sought treatment care following bicycle accidents but did so before the start of the research (Wasserman, 2010). They entailed patients who sought medical care in the previous years before the research began. On average, eight percent of the patients wore helmets at the time of the accident. The percentage was meager compared to twenty-three and twenty-four percent in the second group and emergency control rooms respectively. Four percent of the cyclists with severe head injuries wore helmets. Using regression analysis with controls placed on sex, age, education, income, the seriousness of the accident, and the experience of the cyclist in cycling, it is evident from the statistics offered in the research above that putting on helmets offers eighty-five percent protections with the same percentage in the reduction of the risk. In this calculation we get, the odds ratio remains at 0.15: 95 level of confidence in terms of a percentage ranging from o.07 to 0.30. Reducing the risks accounts for 88% relating to the brain alone. The odds ratio is at 0.13:95% leading to the confidence level of 0.04 to 0.41 (Thompson, 2012).

The studies above show consistent information demonstrating that putting on helmets manufactured and approved by industries and authorities minimizes the risk of injuries significantly when an accident occurs through a collision or a crash. Cutting down on the risk relies on the origins of the controls either from the overall population or emergency sections. Nonetheless, using population-based controls offers the best approximation of the effectiveness of the helmet and increases generalizability. The results show that using helmets reduces the risk of brain and head injury as Rodgers (2010) notes by a percentage ranging from seventy-one to eighty-seven while the decrease of sixty-five percent comes to the mid and upper face in case of facial injuries. With regard to the use of helmets and injuries to the head, the researches in the table above remain conclusive. Nonetheless, future studies should evaluate the degree to which the helmets guard the face and protect the mouth.