What Are Different Types of Finger Injuries?

More than 90% of all human activities are realized by hand. The functions of the hand are holding and feeling (including touch, pain, temperature and space). All bones, joints, muscles, blood vessels and nerve structures of the hand must be intact so that they can perform their functions and complete various actions correctly.

Hand injury

Hand injury concept

More than 90% of all human activities are realized by hand. The functions of the hand are holding and feeling (including touch, pain, temperature and space). All bones, joints, muscles, blood vessels and nerve structures of the hand must be intact so that they can perform their functions and complete various actions correctly.

The hand is the most vulnerable part of the human body. There are as many types and causes of injuries to the hands and arms as the amount of work they do. Hand injuries account for about a quarter of all work-related injuries. In general, hand injuries are not life-threatening but can lead to lifelong disability and loss of ability to work and live. Therefore, the protection of hands and arms is a very important part of occupational safety.

Hand injury classification

Hand injuries can be summarized as physical injuries (fire and high temperature, low temperature, electromagnetic and ionizing radiation, electric shock), chemical injuries (chemical corrosion), mechanical injuries (shock, puncture, contusion, bite, tear, Cutting, abrasions) and biological injuries (local infections). Among them, mechanical injuries are the most common. Mechanical injuries to the hand can be closed or open. The former can affect bones, joints, and muscle health, and sometimes affect the nerves; the latter is more serious because it can bleed a lot and affect other parts of the hand, and it is more complicated to treat. The degree of hand injury varies widely, depending on the factors and process of injury. The most common at work are cuts and punctures. Mild cuts only damage skin tissues, and severe cuts can cause damage to other tissues, or even cause partial or complete amputation; stab wounds can be severe due to the presence of foreign bodies in the wound. The healing of open hand injuries is closely related to the degree of soiling of the hands at the time of the injury. In general, such injuries in chemical plants, slaughterhouses, meat processing plants, and tannery plants can easily lead to infections and other complications.

Due to the widespread use of high-pressure spray and spray equipment in modern industries, there has been a significant increase in accidents caused by spray injuries to the hands. Although the pressure is not large, the pressure ejected through the small aperture has far exceeded the pressure that caused clinical damage. This situation can be seen in internal combustion engines, spray guns, grease injection guns, plastic injection molding machines, and some special equipment for auto repair. If the spray does not impact the skin along the tangential direction, it will not cause skin cracking. It is only tingling in the initial stage and is often ignored. It will not be severe until the pain is exacerbated by ischemia. Sometimes even if the ejection amount is not high enough to cause ischemia, thermal or chemical stimuli will appear after a few days. Due to the solvent contained in the spray, systemic poisoning may be caused.

Hand burns (sometimes accompanied by burns in other areas) can be caused by fire, red heat, hot air, chemicals, or electric shock. The degree of injury depends on the contact time, the area and depth of the burn. Due to the frequent occurrence of such injuries, which can sometimes be very serious, they have become a special type of injury in work accidents.

Mechanical injuries are the most common, and the consequences of electric shock and radiation are serious, so people are wary of them. Safety management departments also pay more attention to the hidden dangers of such accidents. However, the danger of exposure to toxic, irritating or allergic chemicals is often not recognized by most people. Although this kind of chemical injury has not seen trauma, the skin damage caused must not be ignored, and it is one of the three major ways of occupational poisoning.

Employees who have repeated minor hand injuries may suffer from Dupuytren's contracture, a disease characterized by contractile sclerosis of the aponeurosis of the palm, which can worsen and cause irrecoverable bending of the fingers. This disease can be caused by many factors (trauma, neurological disorders, endocrine disorders, rheumatism and vitamin E deficiency, etc.). Studies in recent years have shown that occupational factors are an important cause of the disease. Chronic inflammation and small interstitial bleeding caused by repeated minor hand injuries, vibration caused by wind-powered tools and hand-held power tools are the cause of this disease.

Hand injury protection measures

Measures to protect hands and arms. First, when designing and manufacturing equipment and tools, full consideration must be given from the perspective of safety protection, and relatively complete protection measures must be provided. Secondly, by reasonably formulating and improving safety operation procedures and improving safety precaution facilities, the occurrence of hand injury accidents can be well controlled. For example, installing protective covers for dangerous parts of the equipment; shielding for heat and radiation; equipped with hand tools with reasonable handles, etc. If the above measures still cannot effectively avoid accidents, you can consider using personal protective equipment, wear appropriate hand and arm protective gear in actual production, or apply protective creams and other protective products for regular protection. Protective equipment can be roughly divided into gloves, finger cuffs, hand pads, sleeves, elbow pads, etc. Due to the high production environment temperature during work, the temperature of the skin also rises, and sweating is increased, which increases the chance of skin adhesion and absorption of toxic substances.

In addition to the human body's absorption of toxic substances through the skin, although some poisons cannot be absorbed through the skin, they can adhere to human hands. At this time, if you do not wash your hands or sterilize and grab fruits and eat things, it is bound to These poisons are brought into the digestive tract and into the blood, causing poisoning. It is therefore important to prevent hand injuries and occupational poisoning.

The specific methods are:

1. Prevent toxic substances from running, dripping, dripping or leaking in the workplace.

2. When contacting toxic materials, wear protective clothing and gloves beforehand, and apply protective cream when needed.

3. Persons who come into contact with toxic substances must clean the toxic substances adhered to the skin and hands as soon as possible after operation.

4. After being exposed to lead-containing toxic substances on your hands, wash your hands and soak them in a 3% acetic acid solution for one or two minutes, or you can soak them in vinegar for two or three minutes.

5. Persons who come into contact with trinitrotoluene, namely nitrosamine explosives, should wash their hands with 5% sodium sulfite or 10% to 15% sodium sulfite soap after the operation. After washing, identify with a color developer. The drops are purple on the skin, indicating that they have not been cleaned yet and need to be washed.

6. Aniline-contaminated hands can be washed with 75% alcohol and warm soapy water.

7. Personnel exposed to mercury should be washed with 1/5000 potassium permanganate solution after operation.