As people age, veins and arteries can be more easily torn during a sudden blow or jolt to the head.

The elderly fear breaking a hip when they fall, but a new study indicates that hitting their head can also have deadly consequences: Brain injuries account for half of all deaths from falls.
According to AP, the study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the first comprehensive national look at the role brain injuries play in fatal elderly falls. It examined 16,000 deaths in 2005 that listed unintentional falls as an underlying cause of death. CDC researchers found that slightly more than half of the deaths were attributed to brain injuries.
The other deaths were due to a variety of causes including heart failure, strokes, infections and existing chronic conditions worsened by a broken hip or other injuries sustained in a fall.
“A lot of people don’t think a fall is serious unless they broke a bone, they don’t think it’s serious unless they break a hip. They don’t worry about their head,“ said Pat Flemming, a senior physical therapist and researcher at Vanderbilt University.
Each year, one in three Americans age 65 and older fall. About 30 percent of such falls require medical treatment.
Previous CDC research showed that the US death rate from falling has risen dramatically--about 55 percent--for the elderly since the 1990s. The new study highlights the role that brain injuries play in such deaths.
As people age, veins and arteries can be more easily torn during a sudden blow or jolt to the head, said Marlena Wald, a CDC epidemiologist who co-authored the study.
That can cause a fatal brain bleed. Other factors can contribute, such as the use of blood-thinners, said Judy Stevens, another CDC researcher and co-author.
The severity of brain injuries isn’t always immediately apparent, and some people may not lose consciousness. Wald noted a scenario seen in hospitals in which an elderly fall victim comes in alert and talking, but dies an hour or two later.
The study also found that deaths and hospitalization rates for fall-related brain injuries increased with age.
Brain injuries accounted for about 8 percent of hospital stays for non-fatal falls.
There are several steps older Americans can take to try to prevent falls.
Exercise can increase leg strength and balance. Glasses or other vision correction measures can help people avoid obstacles. And being careful with the use of drugs that can affect thinking and coordination--such as tranquilizers and sleeping pills--can also make a difference.
“Falls are not an inevitable consequence of aging. These head injuries are not inevitable, either,“ Wald said.

A Northwestern University study finds that men are more likely to share their creative work online than women despite the fact that women and men engage in creative activities at essentially equal rates.
“Because sharing information on the Internet today is a form of participating in public culture and contributing to public discourse, that tells us men’s voices are being disproportionately heard,“ says Eszter Hargittai, assistant professor of communication studies at Northwestern University. Hargittai co-authored the study with Northwestern researcher Gina Walejko, Physorg reported.
Overall, almost two-thirds of men reported posting their work online while only half of women reported doing so. When Hargittai and Northwestern’s Walejko controlled for self-reported digital literacy and Web know-how, however, they found that men and women actually posted their material about equally.
“This suggests that the Internet is not an equal playing field for men and women since those with more online abilities--whether perceived or actual--are more likely to contribute online content,“ says Hargittai.

Are premature babies suffering in silence? Brain scans suggest that their faces don’t always show when they are in pain.
According to NewScientist, nurses check whether pre-term babies in intensive care are in pain by measuring their heart rate and the sweatiness of their palms, as well as whether they grimace or not--a series of measurements known as the “premature infant pain profile“. This helps them decide when to give painkillers.
Now Rebeccah Slater and colleagues at University College London, UK, have shown that babies may be in pain without exhibiting any of these signs.
They scanned the brains of prematurely born babies as blood was taken from their heel for routine analysis. In 33 scans on 12 babies, a part of the brain known to register pain in adults--called the somatosensory cortex--was activated.
Yet in 10 of these procedures, the babies did not grimace or show outward signs of pain. “The measurements don’t necessarily correlate with what is happening in the brain,“ Slater says.