Environmental injuries.

Abstract

Environmental injuries and illnesses can happen in home, work, or recreational settings. The variety and severity of these injuries might require the clinician to call on skills from internal medicine, emergency medicine, and toxicology. Diseases of thermoregulation are hypothermia and hyperthermia. In each instance, treatment is based on the need to restore the patient's core temperature to normal and on monitoring for complications. The victim of a fire might suffer inhalation injury in addition to burns, and it is more likely that the inhalation injury will be fatal. Oxygen deprivation and inhalation of irritant or asphyxiant chemicals contribute to injury. Toxic plants can be the source of poisoning emergencies, especially in children. Misinformation and myths that surround common plants can create diagnostic problems (i.e., which plants really are toxic and require emergency measures). Venomous marine organisms can cause a wide range of injury, from cutaneous eruption to fatal envenomation. Most are encountered in a recreational setting, such as water sports, but keepers of home aquariums are subject to stings from venomous fish. Lightning injury can present many diagnostic and treatment dilemmas. An important point in this regard is that lightning injury and high-voltage electrical injury are different in pathology and require different approaches for treatment. A discussion of electrical, chemical, and thermal burns makes such differences apparent.