Patient information sheet describing types of fractures ...



So you’ve broken your bone. You can expect to hear our doctors use these words to describe the break; each one tells something about how it affects your body.

First Orthopedic Doctors divide fracture into the type of bone; then where in the bone the break occurs; whether the break is simple, wedge, or complex; The geometry of the break; and finally any displacement.

Closed breaks do not break the skin. The bone is broken, but it is still inside the protective shell of your skin. Open breaks, of course, break the skin surface and may stay out or retract back into the skin. Sometimes these are called complex fractures. Complicated breaks also tear through an artery, a nerve, or another joint.

An impacted fracture is one whose ends are driven into each other. This is commonly seen in arm fractures in children and is sometimes known as a buckle fracture. Greenstick fracture is an incomplete fracture in which the bone is bent. This type occurs most often in children. We also see spiral fractures in children, where the bone has been twisted apart.

A hairline fracture is a stress fracture, a hairline crack in the bone. Fissure fractures are similar, but a crack extends from the surface into, but not through, a long bone.

A comminuted fracture is one in which the bone fragments into several pieces. Sometimes this is called a fragmental fracture.

Colles' fracture is named for the man who first described it. The radius is the larger of the two bones of the forearm. The end toward the wrist is called the distal end. A fracture of the distal radius occurs when the area of the radius near the wrist breaks. The radius is the most commonly broken bone in the arm. The break usually happens when a fall causes someone to land on their outstretched hands.

A complete fracture is one involving the entire cross section of the bone. An oblique fracture is one in which the break slopes. A butterfly is a bone break in which the center fragment contained by two cracks forms a triangle. A fracture occurring in two sections of the same bone is called a double fracture. This leaves more than one bone fragment in a bone.

A segmental fracture is when a bone breaks in which several large bone fragments separate from the main body of a fractured bone. The ends of the fragments may pierce the skin, as in an open fracture, or may be contained within the skin, as in a closed fracture.

Unstable fractures have an intrinsic tendency to displace after reduction. This will require special treatment.

A vertebral compression fracture occurs when the bones of the spine become broken due to trauma.

SOURCES:

WebMD.

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The Free Dictionary. .

Medilexicon. .

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