Slovenia is a small, fast developing country in the EU with approximately 2,000,000 inhabitants and 700,000 employed. Occupational medicine has been present in Slovenia for as long as 500 yr. Today, ...130 specialists of occupational medicine are in charge of health protection of the employed (including transport workers and athletes). There are also 1,100 safety engineers, who take care of the technical side of occupational safety. We are guided in our work by modern occupational health and safety legislation, which is based on EU directive 89/391 EEC. The average sick leave rate in Slovenia is about 4.7%, caused mostly by injuries, bone, muscle and connective tissue diseases and respiratory diseases. Sick leave appears most frequently in the textile industries and coal mining. Annually, around 26,000 occupational injuries (32.7 per 1,000 employed) and 25 fatalities (3 per 100,000 employed) occur. Most injuries occur in construction, manufacturing and farming. Each year there are 8,500 disablility cases (2,500 disability retirements-most caused by mental illnesses), but only 30 acknowledged cases of occupational diseases (mostly occupational skin diseases, asthma and asbestosis). Occupational medicine in Slovenia is strongly associated with occupational medicine in the more developed European countries. It is therefore moving out of clinics and into the working environment, where its goals lie in primary prevention, i.e. establishing and keeping healthy working environments that guarantee high productivity, health and well-being of workers as a whole.
Summary Purpose To compare medical evaluations of driving capability of drivers with epilepsy with the rules of Slovenian legislation. Methods Our research included all drivers in Slovenia that were ...evaluated as epileptic between 1993 and 2002. The results were processed using the standard descriptive statistical methods. Results During the 10-year period, the commission evaluated 541 cases and prospective drivers of motor vehicles with the primary diagnosis of epilepsy. On average, these individuals drove a third less than other drivers, moreover only 1.6% of the epileptic drivers caused traffic accidents, which is significantly lower than the percentage in general population. Medical evaluations resulted in 349 cases being recognized as capable of driving, while the legislation would issue a driver's license to only 140 of the cases. Conclusion Our research confirmed the supposition that drivers with epilepsy are safe drivers and mirror the general population in many of their driving capabilities, thus making it urgent that the obsolete Slovenian legislation is modified to conform to the recommendations of the International Bureau for Epilepsy as quickly as possible.
Occupational exposure to ionizing radiation for medical workers Background: Health workers in some diagnostic and therapeutic procedures are exposed to low doses of ionizing radiation. Chronic ...exposure to low doses of radiation can have many negative consequences on the human health, such as cataracts and, among the most serious consequences, the increased risk of morbidity for certain types of cancer. Guidelines for the safety of working with radiation sources and the legislation aim to reduce workers' exposure to ionizing radiation to the lowest as reasonably achievable. This article focuses on the presentation and discussion of the effective annual doses for the period from 2006 to 2010 received by Slovenian health care workers exposed to the artificial sources of ionizing radiation. Methods: We obtained personal dosimetry data from 2006 to 2010 collected by the Slovenian Radiation Protection Administration (SRPA). Results: The effective annual dose limit in Slovenia is 20 mSv. The annual dose received by health workers did not exceed 9.99 mSv in any group and in most groups, more than 95 % of doses were in the dose area below 1 mSv (in nuclear medicine and brachytherapy, around 80 %). The average doses for the period from 2006 to 2010 are 0.47 mSv for nuclear medicine, 0.19 mSv for interventional radiology, 0.09 mSv for other radiology, 0.10 mSv for brachytherapy, 0.07 mSv for teleradiotherapy, 0.05 mSv for dental medicine and 0.02 mSv for other employees in medicine. Conclusions: In the last five years, health workers in Slovenia received some ten times less effective annual doses than the effective annual dose limit prescribed by law, which is comparable to the developed world. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Poškodbe sprednje križne vezi kolenskega sklepa postajajo vse pogostejši problem aktivne ženske populacije v primerjavi v moškimi. Poleg začasno ali celo trajno okrnjene funkcije sklepa povečujejo ...tudi tveganje za nastanek zgodnje artroze. Prepoznava dejavnikov tveganja za nastanek tovrstnih poškodb v povezavi z razlikami med spoloma bi bila smiselna pri razvoju preventivnih ukrepov pred tovrstnimi poškodbami. Pregledane laboratorijske in epidemiološke raziskave v letih 1992-2012 so poleg anatomskih in biomehanskih razlik potrdile povezavo med nihanjem hormonov menstrualnega cikla in tveganjem za poškodbo sprednje križne vezi. Preovulatorna faza predstavlja obdobje največjega tveganja zaradi povečane koncentracija estrogena. Kljub navedenim ugotovitvam je videti pomen mesečnega nihanja hormonov premajhen, da bi na njem lahko učinkovito gradili preventivne programe pred poškodbami kolenskih vezi pri ženskah.
To identify population groups at risk of non-use of seat belts in front and rear seats in order to enable more focused planning of preventive actions in Slovenia.
The national health behaviour survey ...of 15,379 adults aged 25-64, carried out in 2001; response rate 64%; 9043 questionnaires eligible for analysis. The observed outcomes: non-use of seat belts in the front and rear seats. Logistic regression was used for relating gender, age, education level, socio-economic factors and geographical region to the observed outcomes.
Non-use of seat belts in the front seats: 5.7%; the highest odds: males (OR(males vs. females)= 1.89, p < 0.001), aged 25-29 (OR(25-29 vs. 50-59) = 2.68, p < 0.001), the lowest education level (OR(uncompleted primary vs. university education) = 2.77, p = 0.001), upper social class (OR(upper vs. lower) = 3.54, p = 0.014), western Slovenia (OR(western vs. eastern) = 1.31, p = 0.027). Non-use of seat belts in the rear seats: 65.2%; the highest odds: aged 25-29 (OR(25-29 vs. 6-64) = 2.83, p < 0.001), vocational (OR(vocational vs. university education) = 1.36, p = 0.005) and secondary education level (OR(secondary vs. university education) = 1.36, p = 0.003), western Slovenia (OR(western vs. eastern) = 1.37, p < 0.001).
Both observed outcomes are a problem particularly in younger age groups with secondary education level or lower, living in western Slovenia; non-use of seat belts in the front seats also in males and in upper social class.
Age affects drivers' response times Bilban, Marjan; Vojvoda, Alenka; Jerman, Janez
Collegium antropologicum,
06/2009, Volume:
33, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In Slovenia the number of drivers over 65 is increasing every year. With age comes a decrease in psychophysical abilities, which include sensory and motoric functions and the ability of processing ...visual information. These changes increase the response time and decrease the driving capacity. The aim of this study was to establish a correlation between age and response time and to determine the difference in response times between men and women. In the research participated 573 randomly chosen drivers aged 19-80 with a valid driving license. We measured their response times, when stimulated by a red traffic light, on a simulator The results clearly demonstrate that a correlation between age and the response time exists. The results show that a significant increase in response times occurs after the age of 65. In all age groups, except the oldest, women achieved longer response times than men.
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