If you, or someone you know, has been through a great trauma and needs help dealing with it, then behavioral therapy trauma can help. There are many misconceptions as to what behavioral therapy trauma is and is not. Read on to see what the basics of behavioral therapy trauma are and how they can be used to help you.

Basics of Behavioral Therapy Trauma

There are some things that behavioral therapy trauma can and can not do. When people think of behavioral therapy trauma they usually envision a direct patient to Doctor interaction. While this is the case some of the time, the majority of the actual therapy is done by the patient and not the Doctor. There are many techniques common to behavioral therapy trauma, which include hypnosis, art, and involved patient and Doctor interaction.

These methods attempt to focus the patient on the trauma they went through and express their emotions and feeling in a different way. By using non verbal methods the patients are not forced to describe what they felt, but rather instead they can simply feel what they want to and let the method express how they are feeling. There are several different ways to do this but all involve some form of expression, usually artistic in nature. You can paint, sculpt, and draw, whatever you are most comfortable with.

Once the work is completed one will usually sit down with a Doctor to go over what they were feeling and how it related to what they did. By talking things out it can bring the feelings that they were having into focus so that you can see what is going on more clearly. This is an important step in the healing process as many times the reason people are so depressed and having so many behavioral issues is that they simply do not know how to express the feeling they have. These methods and techniques let the patients express themselves and get the bad feelings out so the can progress.

As you can see the ideas behind how the therapy works are pretty simple. It is very difficult to do and many people have problems getting started. Once they are involved and start to see positive results from their actions, it becomes a lot easier to keep going with the procedures.

By working these things out the patient will start to feel much better about themselves and their place in the world. It is this that makes the therapy so important.

While many people are familiar with broken, bruised, or cracked ribs due to blunt trauma to the chest, many are not familiar with the other less common factors that can happen with a blunt chest injury. Heart trauma, joint dislocations, and even scraping the spleen are possible conditions that can happen due to blunt trauma to the chest. Here are some uncommon, and sometimes curious, disorders and injuries that occur due to chest trauma.

First And Second Rib Fractures

While it is very common to bruise, break, or fracture a rib, injuring the first or second rib is considered a completely different diagnosis than simply fracturing a rib. In order to break these ribs, excessive energy is required. When the first or second rib is fractured, it usually means that there are other underlying issues such as major cranial, thoracic, vascular, and abdominal injuries. Sometimes first and second rib fractures will require surgery to remove a large and displaced rib fragment.

Scapular Fractures

These fractures are very uncommon, but can occur when blunt trauma to the chest occurs. High energy forces are required to cause a scapular fracture, and many times there are many different associated injuries that come in conjunction with a scapular fracture. In fact, the rate of related injuries is seventy five to one hundred percent. The most common related injuries are head, abdomen, or other chest injuries.

A scapular fracture is most commonly located in the neck or body of the scapula. In excess of thirty percent of scapular fractures are actually missed during an initial evaluation. However, when one is discovered it is imperative that a doctor check for other major vascular injuries as well as injuries of the thorax, neurovascular bundle of the ipsilateral arm, and abdomen. Standard treatment for a scapular fracture is to immobilize the shoulder.

Scapulothoracic Dissociation

This injury can occur when blunt trauma to the chest happens. It is often called a flail shoulder, and it is an extremely rare injury. It occurs when strong traction forces actually pull the scapula and other parts of the shoulder girdle away from the thorax. This severely compromises the muscular, nervous, and vascular components of the shoulder and arm. It can cause significant hematoma formation, edema in the shoulder, loss of sensation and motor function in the shoulder, and decreased or loss pulses in the arm. For patients experiencing this, there is very little treatment. The best option for many people is an above the elbow amputation.

Pediatric trauma is the leading cause of death and severe injury among children in the United States. In order for a doctor to properly care for a child experiencing such trauma, the doctor must have special knowledge, know precise management, and pay extreme attention to details. Every single person who comes in contact with the injured child must be familiar with modern trauma care in children.

Pediatric Trauma Care History

Peter Kottmeier established the very first pediatric trauma unit in 1962 at the Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, New York. Later in 1976, the Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient was published by the American College of Surgeons. This booklet finally established requirements that a pediatric trauma center should meet. Starting in 1985, the National Pediatric Trauma Registry began collecting data on pediatric accidents. The United States alone houses eighty one accredited pediatric trauma programs today.

Pediatric Trauma Basics

In children older than one year old, injury is the leading cause of death. Injury exceeds every other cause of death—combined—in children. Unintentional injury makes up sixty five percent of all injury deaths in children eighteen years and younger. In a twenty year study from 1972 to 1992, motor vehicle accidents were the most common cause of death for one to nineteen year old children. The next most common cause of death was homicide or suicide (mostly with firearms), and then drowning. Every year about twenty thousand children and teenagers will die as a result of an injury or pediatric trauma. For each one child that dies from an injury or trauma, 1120 will be treated in an emergency room and forty will be hospitalized. About fifty thousand children will have an injury that leads to a permanent disability every year. Pediatric trauma is a major health and well-being threat to children.

Pediatric Blunt Trauma And Penetrating Injuries

Blunt trauma to the chest or other areas is a very common cause of pediatric trauma. Penetrating injury of this sort is responsible for about ten to twenty percent of pediatric trauma. Sadly, gunshot wounds are the cause of most penetrating injuries. These traumas have a much higher mortality rate then simple blunt object injuries. Increase in urban violence has caused an increase in the frequency of children with pediatric trauma from penetrating injuries. However, other objects can, and do, cause blunt and penetrating trauma. Fender edges, shrapnel, and door handles can all cause blunt or penetrating trauma in children.

These injuries are very common in children. In order to protect your child, make sure that your home is safe and that your child is always safely secured in their car seat.

Trauma to the chest wall is very common in the event of blunt trauma. It can vary in severity from simply minor bruising to a single rib fracture to even severe crush injuries of both rib cages. The more severe the injury, the more critical it is. Severe chest wall trauma can lead to a compromised respiratory system.

Chest Wall Trauma Basics

Most chest injuries and chest wall traumas require no real therapy or treatment. The treatment for bruised or even broken ribs is to let them heal naturally, for example. However, broken or bruised ribs and other more severe chest wall trauma can indicate that there is a more severe underlying trauma. For example, many multiple rib fractures can mean that the patient has an underlying pulmonary contusion. This pulmonary contusion may not have been readily visible on the initial chest x-ray, but the fractures will show the doctor that he must take another x-ray.

In addition, lower rib fractures can mean that there are diaphragmatic tears and even spleen or liver injuries. Upper chest wall trauma sometimes shows injuries to adjacent great vessels. This is usually true when the first rib is fractured as that particular rib is extremely difficult to break and requires a great deal of force. Chest wall trauma can be critical when certain parts of it are injured. For example, the rib cage and sternum provide stability and support for the thoracic spine. Any major damage to the rib cage and sternum could cause damage to the thoracic spine.

Chest Wall Trauma Diagnosis

Most severe cases of chest wall trauma will be diagnosed by the initial physical examination at a doctor’s office or hospital. Seat belt bruising, grazes, or other bruises are visible on an initial exam. Palpation may show the crepitus that is often times associated with broken ribs. If the patient is conscious, he or she may complain of pain on palpation of the chest wall or on the inspiration. Other, possibly more severe chest wall trauma, will be diagnosed via chest x-ray.

An antero-posterior chest x-ray will show the most extreme and significant chest wall trauma. However, it will not show all rib fractures. A lateral or anterior rib fracture can be easily missed on an initial plain film x-ray. That said, knowing exactly where the fracture is, is not necessarily essential to treating the rib fracture, unless it is a pediatric chest trauma, as management and treatment in adults is determined by the clinical significance, not the placement.

Thoracic trauma in children is synonymous with multi systemic injuries. These injuries are found in more than half of children that have thoracic traumas. This is mainly due to the fact that about ninety percent of thoracic injuries found in children are blunt injuries. This includes those injuries caused by pedestrian and motor vehicle accidents. In addition, a smaller chest compared to other parts of the child (such as the head, stomach, and extremities), also contributes to the large percentage of these injuries. Also, the younger the child is the higher probability that the abdomen will be associated with the thoracic trauma.

Frequency Of Childhood Thoracic Trauma

Childhood thoracic trauma is not the leading cause of injury, death, or hospitalization in children. The frequency of such trauma is well below that of musculoskeletal trauma, neurological trauma, and abdominal trauma. However, the disheartening news is that the mortality rate in children with thoracic trauma associated with multi systemic trauma or injuries is very high. For example, an isolated case of thoracic trauma in a child has a death rate around five percent. But when you add in an abdominal injury making it a thoracic and abdominal trauma, the death rate soars to around twenty percent. If the child has a thoracic injury with the addition of a head injury, the death rate is close to thirty five percent.

Characteristics And Treatment Of Childhood Thoracic Trauma

A thoracic injury or trauma in a child is must different to diagnose and treat than that of an adult. Childhood thoracic traumas have different characteristics than that of an adult. First, in children multi systemic injuries are also present in more than fifty percent of childhood thoracic injuries. In children, the thoracic cage is cartilaginous and the chest wall is very compliant (which leads to less actual chest wall trauma in children). If the ribs are bruised or fractured in a child, it usually means that a direct blow was made to the chest with extreme force. This is very rare to see in a child. In addition, because the mediastinum is not fixed, when tension pneumothorax occurs it is difficult for a child’s body to tolerate. Also, pulmonary contusions are sadly very common in children with thoracic injuries and traumas.

The most important part of diagnosing and treating a thoracic trauma in a child is determining whether or not it is life threatening. If it is life threatening, certain treatments must be done that are not necessary in non life threatening injuries. If the injury is correctly diagnosed, chances are much higher that the child will survive in the long run.