Symposium: Injury Reduction and Stair Falls

Abstract

At the 28th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society, a paper entitled THE FORGIVING STAIR introduced the idea that deaths and injuries caused by stair falls can be greatly reduced. The author suggested that using the model of the automobile interior, stairs can be designed without those elements that are potentially injurious in the event of a fall; and that the stair treads, particularly, can be designed to attenuate the forces of a fall to the degree that is necessary to reduce the severity of an impact. As stairs falls are a common cause of death and injury in the home and in the workplace in all those countries that maintain accident records, a proposal to reduce morbidity from this cause may be of considerable importance.

A grant to explore aspects of THE FORGIVING STAIR has led to three interwoven but discrete projects and these three projects are the subject of the symposium. Cumulatively the three projects contribute to a theory of injury reduction from falls, and this is the objective of the symposium. To reduce injuries, the force of the body impacting the stair must be attenuated. Therefore the parts of the body that strike the stair, and the magnitude of the impact must be understood.