Fractures Specialist

What causes fractures?

Fractures (broken bones) occur due to a traumatic injury, stress fracture, or brittle bones. The most common traumas include falls, car accidents, and sports injuries.

Stress fractures occur when your activities place repetitive, excessive force on the bones, resulting in a crack. Osteoporosis makes your bones so brittle and weak that they easily fracture or collapse with little force.

What symptoms does a fracture cause?

Fractures cause symptoms such as:

• Pain
• Swelling
• Bruising
• Limited range of motion
• Reduced mobility
• Visible deformities (due to a misaligned bone)
• Inability to use the affected limb

When a spinal vertebra collapses due to osteoporosis, you have sudden back pain without swelling and bruising.

What are the different types of fractures?

Bones break in many different ways. A few examples include:

• Complete fracture (the bone breaks into two pieces)
• Partial fracture (a crack but not a full break)
• Comminuted (the bone is broken into several pieces)
• Spiral (the fracture line follows a curled pattern)
• Open fracture (the bone breaks through the skin)

An open fracture is dangerous because the wound allows dirt, bacteria, and other contaminants to get inside your body. As a result, you have a high risk of developing an infection.

How are fractures treated?

Powell Orthopedics and Sports Medicine offers exceptional fracture treatment, including:

Immobilization

A fracture can only heal properly when the bones are in their proper position and immobilized with a brace or cast.

Bone realignment

If the bone pieces are out of place, your provider must realign them with a procedure called reduction and fixation.

Reduction is the process of putting displaced bones back in their normal position. You may need surgery (open reduction), or your provider may manually realign the bones without making an incision (closed reduction)

Fixation refers to holding the bones in place using screws, rods, wires, plates, or nails. During an open reduction, the hardware goes inside your body (internal fixation). If you have a closed reduction, the hardware goes through your skin (external fixation).

Surgery for an open fracture

If you have an open fracture, you need surgery as soon as possible so your provider can clean out the dirt and foreign material, remove damaged tissues, and cleanse the area.

Physical therapy and rehabilitation

Though intensive rehabilitation can't begin until after your fracture heals, Powell Orthopedics and Sports Medicine begins your physical therapy as early as possible so you can restore muscle strength and joint movement.

To get the help you need for a fracture, call Powell Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, or book an appointment online today.