A wrist fracture can vary in severity and treatment needed. It can be classified as open or closed, and by how the bone is broken. X-rays are used to confirm the injury, but signs of pain, swelling, and deformity are also indicators.
A fracture is a break in a bone and is often accompanied by damage to the soft tissue such as the skin, nerves, blood vessels and muscles surrounding the break. A wrist fracture or broken wrist is a break in any of the carpals, the bones that make up the wrist. Fractures, including a wrist fracture, can vary significantly in severity, size, and the type of treatment needed for proper healing.
Doctors can classify a wrist fracture or any other broken bone as open or closed, as well as by how the bone is broken. For example, an open wrist fracture would be an injury involving a break in the skin through which bone and other soft tissue could protrude and be accompanied by bleeding. A closed fracture is an injury in which the skin has not been broken, but a closed wrist fracture is not necessarily less painful than an open one. One of the most significant differences between open and closed wrist fracture is that the open one increases the patient’s risk of developing a serious infection and always requires surgery for proper healing, and closed fractures may not require surgery.
The terms “comminuted,” “green stick,” and “angled” are used by mechanical professionals to refer to the ways bones can be broken. If a wrist fracture involves breaks in multiple places of the carpals, it may be referred to as a comminuted fracture. An incomplete break in one of the bones could be described as a greenstick fracture. The term angled refers to bones broken at an angle and is used primarily to describe fractures of long bones such as those in the arm, not the irregularly shaped carpals that form the wrist.
Although X-rays or some other form of imaging process is used to confirm whether a true wrist fracture has occurred, there should be a very high suspicion of such an injury if the area is painful, swollen, or shows any signs of deformity. This is especially true if the person has experienced significant trauma to any other part of their body. Aside from protruding bone through an open fracture, a deformed wrist is probably one of the most accurate signs that the carpals have been broken.
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