and that they now look like this:
It's not surprising that they're more likely to fall on children than they were decades ago.
Posted on 07/21/2013 9:59:32 PM PDT by knak
The rate of child injury from falling televisions has increased by 95% over the past 22 years, researchers found.
From 1990 to 2011, the average annual injury rate attributable to televisions in children was 2.43 per 10,000 children younger than 18, according to Gary Smith, MD, of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and colleagues.
Among children younger than 5, the number of injuries related to falling televisions increased by 125.5% over the 22 years, equivalent to an overall rate increase of 95.3%, they wrote online in the journal Pediatrics.
Prior research on this topic has shown that pediatric injuries stemming from televisions tipping over have gone up recently, with children ages 4 and younger at highest risk for injury.
The authors studied the epidemiology of television-related injuries though 380,885 reports from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System from children reporting to an emergency department for such an injury from 1990 to 2011.
The surveillance report included data on age, gender, injury diagnosis, injured body region, products involved, location of the injury, disposition from the emergency department, and circumstances related to the injury.
Based on injury circumstances, injuries were categorized as a television fall, patient striking a television, injury while moving a television, or other. These narratives also included furniture which was used to support the television, such as a dresser, entertainment center, shelf, table, cabinet, wall mount, or other support.
Televisions were also categorized as being 27 inches and larger or 26 inches and smaller.
Injury codes included laceration, contusion, soft tissue injury, fracture, strain, and other -- which included shocks, burns, dislocations, and dental injuries.
Mean patient age was 4.7, and children younger than 5 represented 64.3% of injured patients, while children ages 5 to 10 24.3% and those ages 11 to 17 made up 11.4% of injuries. Most of the children injured were male (60.8%).
Television-based injuries were mostly consistent over the study period.
Television falls were the most common type of injury, accounting for more than half of all injuries (52.5%), followed by striking a television (38.1%).
Falling television injuries increased significantly over the study period, from 0.85 per 10,000 children in 1990 to 1.66 per 10,000 children in 2011 (P<0.001).
Injuries from striking a television decreased significantly over the 22-year period by 71.9% from 1.53 injuries per 10,000 children in 1990 to 0.43 injuries per 10,000 children in 2011.
The rate of injuries associated with a TV falling from a dresser, bureau, chest of drawers, or armoire rose by a significant 344.1% during the study period, the authors noted.
"Despite the relatively low documentation ... of the type of furniture on which falling TVs were placed, the frequency of dressers/ bureaus/chests of drawers/armoires being used to support TVs (almost half of the cases in this study) is alarming," they wrote. "As noted in previous studies, children may pull dresser drawers open to use as stairs to help them reach the TV, potentially pulling both the dresser and TV over onto themselves."
Children were most commonly injured in the head and neck (63.3%), followed by the lower extremities (21.5%). Head and neck injuries were associated with a 36% increased likelihood of hospital admission (95% CI 1.03-1.80) compared with other areas of bodily injury.
Children younger than 5 were 36% more likely to receive a head or neck injury and 22% more likely to be injured by a falling television.
Over two thirds of injuries were lacerations or soft tissue injuries (36.7% and 35.1%, respectively), though few injuries required hospital admission or less-than-24-hour observation (2.6%).
The authors attributed the increased number of television fall injuries to the rising number of televisions in homes, though they cautioned that if that were the only cause of such injuries that injuries from striking a television would have also risen instead of going down.
"The disparity between injury rates associated with falling televisions and striking a television is provocative, especially given the more serious outcomes associated with falling televisions," they wrote, adding that the location of television placement may account for the differences in injury rates, as has the decline of cathode tube televisions for flat screen technologies.
The authors noted that their study was limited by potential underestimates of television-related injuries, absent data on fatalities, inconsistent amounts of details in recorded data, biases in descriptive data, and missing data on types of televisions responsible for injuries.
Will say the same thing I said when last posted (about 12:30):
If you happen to be using the older TVs, just keep your kinds away from them ... like on the sofa, not down in front of the set. (and not everyone can afford nor want the newer “light as a feather” TVs). Just a common sense response to the obvious.
If these were the kind of TV’s that were around when I was oh, say, 8 or 9 (I’m fifty-seven) you wouldn’t be reading about kids being ‘’hurt’’. You’d read about ‘em being ‘’dead’’. ‘ Course, it’d take a lot to tip over one them big ass RCA’s or ‘’Admiral’’ Console TV’s. Them things weighed about a ton, in those big boxy cabinets they were built into. Weighed so much they’d leave permanent ruts in the carpet. No sir. If one of those things landed on you were a bug on the windshield at 90 mph.
TV’s falling on kids. Guess that’s one way to put it.
I wonder how many of those children are in “poverty.” Also how many of those tv’s can be classified as flat screen.
and that they now look like this:
It's not surprising that they're more likely to fall on children than they were decades ago.
Never place anything tempting or attractive to small children on furniture with drawers. They will quickly figure out how to use drawers as steps and if they weigh enough, tip the furniture over on themselves.
Not all toddlers are climbers, but those that do are no end of trouble and catastrophe. If you have a climber, anchor all the furniture to the walls, especially bookcases and hutches.
Spend the extra time and $40 for a bracket and hang them on walls.
$40!!??
If I had that kind of spending money I would get my car fixed.
Sadly, I even had to use the cinder blocks it was up on to set my new 78-inch TV on.
(I HAVE seen similar situations in my travels).
These didn't tip over quite as easily, no matter how hard a kid may try.
Off course, if you raise a pack of house apes, rather than a family of young humans, it will make a large difference in injury rates, no matter what kind of funishings and appliances one has.
"Back in the day", designers and engineers knew enough to keep the center of gravity low, and the base wide/deep compared to height.
I believe it was 37" Sony Trinitron. That thing weighed a ton!
...TVs, just keep your kinds away from them..
Fixed.
How many other “surveillance Systems” are in place to track our movements and injuries? What started out as a way to track infectious diseases has exploded.
What happens when all of this surveillance suddenly becomes accessible by anyone due to a presidential directive?
Of course, we have promises from politicians that this could never happen!
And we all know that if you can't trust a politicians' promise during an election year ... why how could you trust anything?
Call your congressmen and congresswomen, this is a crisis. Only government intervention will save the chilrun. But wait, we abort chilrun.... problem solved in due time.
The 50” flat panel I bought 4-5 years ago came with an earthquake cable. A cable with two loops, one screw towards the top of the TV, the other goes to the wall.
This isn’t hard to ameliorate. It doesn’t take a Federal program.
Two Children and three grand children. Never even suspected this happening - it also never did. I’m wondering who paid for this study.
I had a 38” RCA widescreen something like that. It weighed almost 200 lbs.
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