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The methods of detecting abuse in children could be given a helping hand thanks to detailed eye examinations which can be used to figure out whether, or not, infant and toddler head injuries have been caused by accidental injury or child abuse.
Head injury can result in retinal bleeding and a study released on Monday has reported that they were able to confirm 93 percent of child-abuse cases by examining retinal hemorrhages.A retinal bleed occurs when fine blood vessels of the eye tear after being injured by the force of an injury
The findings will be important in court proceedings that involve alleged child abusers. Evaluations of abusive head trauma can now be much more precise in young children and infants when based on results of retinal examinations.
The big challenge is to make a secure diagnosis to ensure the child stays safe and to prevent further injury from any abuse.
It has always been a challenge for researchers to link retinal injuries to abuse compared with injury sustained by accident. In this study, medical records of 114 children with head injuries, 79 boys and 35 girls, who were treated in Scotland were used.
It was found that a certain kind of retinal injury in the middle layer of the eyes was more common in children who were thought to have been abused. In the study the researchers found that 93 percent of children who were abused had in excess of 25 of these injuries.
The injuries in cases not linked to abuse were found to be more likely in other areas of the retina. The bleeding linked to abuse may likely have occurred because the injuries repeatedly caused the head to rotate.
It leads to a call for all young children of whom there are suspicions of having been abused to be examined and evaluated by an ophthalmologist.