Bone Fractures – 6 Most Important Things

Bone fractures are something that we can treat successfully most of the time. However, If not treated properly in the long run, You might have long lasting damaging and possibly irreversible consequences, complications of bone fractures are many but besides these acute complications such as bleeding, Patients who do not get proper treatment could end up with joint stiffness, pain and lack of movement in certain joints but also dangerous and possibly deadly conditions such as osteomyelitis. But, What is the proper treatment for your bone fracture? Successful fracture treatment depends on many things and so many doctors and therefore, one size fits, all can definitely not work in this case. For example, This over here is the femur. the longest bone of the human body. Proximally, It articulates with the hip bone and it creates the hip joint distally. It articulates with the tibia to create the knee joint. Now, I want to explain certain things that matter when it comes to bone fractures. On this bone as an example, Around this longest bone of the human body, We can find many arteries and hear the biggest artery around it would be the femoral artery. We can also find the femoral nerve at the proximity of the femoral bone, If a fractured or a luxative femur bone is not repositioned early on during the transportation to the clinic. It can leave arteries and nerves permanently damaged but that’s just one detail and many of these decisions have to be made quickly because most of the time fractures are acute cases. I will explain six things that really matter when it comes to treating bone fractures. Things that have a long-term impact on how well the bones will heal. So, The first thing that really matters is where anatomically the fracture actually took place. An adult human body contains 206 bones and these bones can be small, big, short, long and even flat such as the scapula that is the shoulder blade. The second thing that truly matters, When it comes to fractures is the pattern of the fracture. A case in which the fracture happens parallel to the bones long axis would be defined as a linear fracture. A transverse fracture has a 90 degrees angle in relation to the long axis of the bone but those are just two very simple bone fracture patterns and we can further identify an impacted fracture. Compression fracture and a spiral fracture and so on. So, I wanted to include one more thing here in these numbers, that is not directly medically related to bone fractures. But I’m just going to explain it. It won’t be in the numbers, that thing is really important and it’s providing proper information to the patients and explaining them things about their bone fractures. In order for us to do that our videos should be suggested and promoted by YouTube but that will not take place unless, we get enough of likes and subscriptions. So, before I explain. The third thing you can go ahead and subscribe down there to this channel. You can click down there to do that and like this video. I mean only if you want to and now back to the third thing. That’s important if you’re already subscribed and those are the fragments. This which you can see here is a close-up illustration of the knee joint. Here is the tibia and the fibula and here you can see the femur, the distal part of the femur bone, that is this part over here, as the bone fractures it can happen that a fragment of the bone is partially or a completely separated from the bone. In certain cases, Multiple fragments can be present and this further complicates the surgery and the prognosis. The fourth thing I’d like to explain is a possible displacement of the bone. A fractured bone can be displaced and if it’s just moved sideways, We refer to that as a translated fracture. A fracture in which the bone is tilted in a certain way, a fracture in which the bone is tilted in a certain way is defined as an angulated fracture rotation of the bone can also be present in a displaced type of fracture. The fifth thing that really matters is whether the joint creating parts of the bone also fractured, the joints can be partially involved or they can be a complete separation of the joint from the rest of the bone. Treating these fractures is much harder and it is extremely important to do this properly because articular cartilage of the joints has limited recovery capabilities. You probably forgot what was explained at the beginning of this video but it was mentioned that arteries and nerves can be damaged in bone fractures and it is sometimes absolutely mandatory to reposition the bones even before the patient reaches the clinic, in order to protect these structures damaged nerves can cause chronic pain and paresthesia. But, it is this possible immobility and loss of movement that is really scary. Another reason why soft tissue involvement matters is because skin acts as a protective layer, protecting the bones and joints from the outside contamination. An open fracture is a fracture in which the Bones have been exposed because of the damage to the skin and the soft tissues that normally cover and protect the bones. This increases the chances of contamination and infection dramatically. In some cases, Every third open fracture experiences an infection after the fixation of the fractured bone. So, The six things that truly matter when it comes to bone fractures are the anatomical position of the bone fracture that is where the fracture actually took place. Furthermore, The question, whether fragments are present is important and if the fracture also involves joint surfaces then we have to know the pattern of the fracture which in this case would be the transverse. Pattern of the fracture also a displacement of the fractured bone is important and soft tissue involvement where arteries and nerves can be damaged or if the skin is damaged we might be dealing with an opened fracture which can easily be infected because of all of these factors. Bone fractures can be extremely different from one another and therefore diagnostic requirements are also different in most of the cases. All we need is an X-Ray Scan and a CT scan but some fractures can be noticed on an MRI scan and not on an X-Ray Scan. So, What should be done about a fracture before the patient reaches the clinic, during the surgery and after the surgery, during the recovery must be decided with proper understanding and analyzing of all of these factors as if that wasn’t enough. Additional factors not really directly related to the fracture itself must be considered as well. We must have proper bone density and quality in order to use certain implants or joint replacements. Patients must be compliant and willing to go through long periods of recovery if the chosen treatment option requires that so because of all of these factors, it is really smart to always get a second opinion. We can all benefit from videos like these if you’re a doctor and you want to make a similar video then go to anatomsky.com but if you have more questions about bone fractures then go to this link symptomskey.com/help/bone-fracture