Orthopedic trauma is a serious injury to the musculoskeletal system, often caused by traffic accidents, falls, or industrial accidents. Treatment requires urgent care and may involve surgery, physical therapy, and follow-up exams to monitor healing and complications.
Orthopedic trauma is a serious injury to a part of the musculoskeletal system, such as bones, joints, or ligaments. In some cases, it presents a life-threatening medical emergency, while in others it requires urgent care but the patient is not in imminent danger. Treatment usually requires the services of an orthopedic surgeon and may require an orthopedic trauma specialist, someone who focuses on caring for patients who need critical care due to serious injuries.
Traffic accidents are a common cause of orthopedic trauma. People can also suffer trauma from slips, falls and industrial accidents. Immediate risks to patients may include bleeding if major arteries are involved or close to the trauma site, shock from pain and blood loss, and injury to internal organs from bone fractures or crush injuries. When a patient presents to the hospital or to the scene of an orthopedic trauma accident, a rapid assessment is performed to determine the extent of the trauma and develop a treatment plan.
People with severe musculoskeletal injuries commonly have other trauma-related injuries, and these need to be evaluated and treated at the same time. Treating a patient’s broken femur while ignoring a head injury, for example, would put the patient in serious danger. Sometimes, the most obvious wound isn’t the most serious. An exam, medical imaging studies, and patient monitoring are needed to identify all lesions and rank them in order of importance to increase the chances of survival through treatment.
Management of orthopedic trauma usually requires surgery. In surgery, the trauma site will be probed to remove any foreign bodies and irrigated to clean it out. The bone will be fixed and can be fixed with rods, screws and other devices if it is badly damaged. A cast may be placed to fix the bone in place or the patient may need to wear slings and other devices while the bone heals if a cast is not feasible. While the patient is under anesthesia, treatment for other injuries may also be offered by members of a surgical team.
Recovering from orthopedic trauma can take weeks or months for severe fractures and large bones. The patient may need physical therapy to develop muscle strength and flexibility. X-rays and follow-up exams are used to monitor the progress of healing and identify complications such as infection, inflammation, or nonunion, where bones don’t heal after being fixed.
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