Minimising Brain Damage from Head Injury by Appropriate Early Management

In most Westernised countries injury is the leasing cause not only of death under the age of 45, but also of years of life lost between the ages 1 and 65 years. By these measures injury is ahead of heart disease, stroke and cancer in the UK, West Germany, France, the US and Japan. The proportion of all deaths that are due to accidents varies considerably between countries, higher in Australia and Canada than in the USA and West Germany, and less common in the UK. Road accidents account for about a half of accidental deaths in North America, Australia and West Germany but for only a third in England and Scotland. Road accident deaths per 100000 population vary from 30 in West Germany, Australia, and Canada, through 22 for the USA, to only about 15 in the UK (WHO 1987).