deceleration injury

deceleration injury,

an injury resulting from a collision between a rapidly moving body part and a stationary object.

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injury [in´jŭ-re]

harm or hurt; usually applied to damage inflicted on the body by an external force. Called also trauma and wound.

brain injury impairment of structure or function of the brain, usually as a result of a trauma.

deceleration injury a mechanism of motion injury in which the body is forcibly stopped but the contents of the body cavities remain in motion due to inertia; the brain is particularly vulnerable to such trauma.

head injury see head injury.

risk for injury a nursing diagnosis approved by the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association, defined as the state in which a person is at risk for injury as a result of environmental conditions interacting with the individual's adaptive and defensive resources. Any pathophysiological condition such as altered level of consciousness, impaired sensory perception, tissue hypoxia, and pain or fatigue can contribute to or be the cause of personal injury. Age-related factors include infancy and early childhood, advanced age, and the 20- to 29-year age group in which accidents and harmful lifestyles are major causes of illness and death.

risk for perioperative-positioning injury a nursing diagnosis approved by the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association, defined as being at risk for injury as a result of the environmental conditions found in the perioperative setting.

ventilator-induced injury injury to the lung secondary to ventilator treatment, the result of excessive airway pressures, maldistribution of tidal volume, or high oxygen concentrations. See also barotrauma.

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deceleration injury

Emergency medicine An MVA-related injury, in which a freely-mobile heart in the pericardial cavity is thrown forward, and either tears the fixed ligamentum arteriosum or, if the deceleration is extreme, ruptures the aorta, causing fatal hemopericardium. See Steering wheel 'syndrome.'.