Pediatric Biomechanics
What is more valuable than our children? Any parent is concerned about the safety of their children, however, as much as we procure them, we cannot observe them 24/7, and thus accidents are likely to happen. At NBI we care for the assessment of our future leaders’ safety. Thus, we have pediatric biomechanics experts with years of experience in analyzing infant biomechanics.
Unintentional injuries in the paediatric population commonly occur from falls, road accidents or suffocation (SIDS). On average, 12,175 children 0 to 19 years of age died from an unintentional injury in the period of 2000-2006 as reported by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Accident reconstruction and biomechanics analysis can help in the further understanding of these injuries and improve safety measurements to prevent injuries. The challenge with paediatric population is that they are highly unpredictable, their physiology is constantly changing, and it has been under studied. At NBI, we specialize in evidence- based accident reconstruction and biomechanics analysis, incorporating scientific peer-reviewed publications as well the expertise of our pediatric biomechanics experts in our analyses.
Falls are accountable for 50% of nonfatal injuries. Falls can happen when a child is left unattended at an elevated object, such as playground equipment in daycares, parks or even at homes. Imagine that your child got injured at daycare, you will ask yourself if the daycare is secure enough or are they not watching my child appropriately. It is impossible to have constant observation of a child or restrain them to not move or play. However, it is possible to assess the safety of the equipment at the day care. The severity of an injury is extremely dependent on the height of the equipment. Through understanding of the laws of physics, it is possible to quantify the forces that a child would be subject to when falling from an elevated equipment, which in turn can be compared to injury tolerance values reported in scientific literature. Consequently, a daycare can perform adequate decisions on how to equip a facility according to safety standards.
Motor vehicle collisions are yet another leading cause of injury in children. In vehicle collisions, the passengers are subject to high linear and rotational acceleration forces at their bodies and propense to impacts with car structures. These have a high potential of causing brain or body injuries, some which can be deadly for an infant. Moreover, impact of the body with car structures can lead to severe fractures in young children, which in consequence impede proper motor control and physiological development. To avoid this, proper biomechanic tolerances and models should be taken into consideration for safe vehicle design and injury assessment.
In addition to our reactive efforts in analyzing injury, NBI pediatric experts have also developed proprietary technology to analyze infant and children movement patterns. This revolutionary technology allows for continuous monitoring of children movement, fall detection, time and position during sleep for prevention of suffocation or forces that children are subject to in traffic accidents.
