• Jeong-Hyeon Mun, Jong-Hyun Jeon, Yun-Jae Jung, Ki-Un Jang, Hyeong Tae Yang, Hae Jun Lim, Yong Suk Cho, Dohern Kim, Jun Hur, Jong Hyun Kim, Wook Chun, and Cheong Hoon Seo.
• Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Hallym University Burn Institute, Hallym University College of Medicine, Seoul 150-719, Korea.
• Ann Rehabil Med. 2012 Oct 1;36(5):688-95.

ObjectiveTo understand the injury pattern of contact burns from therapeutic physical modalities.MethodA retrospective study was done in 864 patients with contact burns who discharged from our hospital from January 2005 to December 2008. The following parameters were compared between patients with contact burns from therapeutic modalities and from other causes: general characteristics, burn extent, cause of burn injury, place of occurrence, burn injury site, treatment methods, prevalence of underlying disease, and length of hospital stay were compared between patients with contact burns.ResultsOf the 864 subjects, 94 patients were injured from therapeutic modalities. A hot pack (n=51) was the most common type of therapeutic modality causing contact burn followed by moxibustion (n=21), electric heating pad (n=16), and radiant heat (n=4). The lower leg (n=31) was the most common injury site followed by the foot & ankle (n=24), buttock & coccyx (n=9), knee (n=8), trunk (n=8), back (n=6), shoulder (n=4), and arm (n=4). Diabetes mellitus was associated with contact burns from therapeutic modalities; the odds ratio was 3.99. Injuries took place most commonly at home (n=56), followed by the hospital (n=33), and in other places (n=5).ConclusionA hot pack was the most common cause of contact burns from therapeutic modalities, and the lower leg was the most common injury site. Injuries took place most commonly at home. The patients with contact burns from therapeutic modalities showed high correlation to presence of diabetes mellitus. These results would be helpful for the prevention of contact burns due to therapeutic modalities.

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