Although we live in a free world where communication should settle any dispute, there are still people choosing the hard way. And when I say that I refer especially to domestic violence, which, surprisingly or not, still makes many couples fall apart. Of course, there are many others choosing to keep silence over the issue and go further hoping that what happened once won’t happen again. And, here, I refer particularly to the women who choose to lie about their injuries in order to “save” their marriage, but at what cost, I wonder.

 

A new study related to domestic violence, which was published in the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, reveals that fractures around the eye or upper face might be an important sign that the woman was a victim of intimate partner violence defined as physical, sexual or emotional violence between partners or former partner. These women’s facial injuries are clear signs that they were not involved in car crashes, falls or assaults by strangers.

 

For the study, Oneida A. Arosarena, M.D., of the Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, and colleagues analyzed the medical and dental records of 326 women treated for facial trauma between 1998 and 2004. Motor vehicle crashes accounted for the largest proportion of cases (42.6 percent), followed by falls (21.5 percent).

 

Of 45 assault victims identified, 19 were documented victims of domestic violence. As expected, few of the assault cases were reported to the policeor a social worker (15.6 percent), the researchers found.

 

“Recognition of fracture patterns, as well as patients' manners of presentation, can assist physicians in identifying intimate partner violence and can be effective in the development of protocols and programs aimed at comprehensive treatment and follow-up with these patients,” the researchers said.

 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 4.8 million women in the United States and 2.9 million men are victims of intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes annually. Hopefully, this study will lead to fewer cases as doctors will be able to “read between the lines” when they see such a case.