Compound Fracture Neck

Being that the anatomy of the neck is both delicate to begin with and suffers degeneration as a normal part of its lifecycle significant fractures in the cervical spine often have neurological effects making them potentially problematic and possibly even disabling.

Compound fracture neck. Spine related trauma may injure the spinal cord and could result in paralysis so keeping the neck still is critical. Non healing fracture post compound humerus fracture. These specific symptoms herald the onset of life threatening complications or long term consequences and so indicate a transfer to the er of a multi speciality hospital at the earliest. If compound fracture is left untreated the following complications may occur.

The broken neck or neck fracture may be hairline or nondisplaced fracture. Symptoms of compound fractures are mainly due to the open wound and the broken bones within the wound. A fracture in which a bone is sticking through the skin. Any injury to the head or neck should be evaluated for a neck fracture.

Chronic osteomyelitis as a complication of compound humerus fracture. Such a fracture is infected and requires different management from a non compound simple fracture. Repeated trauma over the site of injury during the healing phase can cause non healing fracture or malunion of the bone. Shiel jr md facp facr compound fracture.

Fracture involves only a portion of the cross section. The serious injury may cause displace or compound fracture of vertebra as well as complete dislocation of facet joint. Fracture is sometimes abbreviated frx or fx fx or. Five major types are as follows.

It is an infection of the bone that invades and damages the surrounding bone. A cervical fracture is a medical emergency that requires immediate treatment. Medical definition of compound fracture medical author. Spinal compression fracture video the condition is most often caused by osteoporosis and may be caused by trauma to the back such as a fall or vehicular accident.

The mri and ct scan helps to diagnose various types of fracture of vertebrae dislocation of facet joint collapse of vertebra body foraminal stenosis narrowing of spinal canal and foraminal stenosis. However compression fractures in the neck still do occur and can still cause serious health concerns for affected patients. A compression fracture may cause no symptoms at all but most typically causes pain in the area of the fracture e g. For example if a tibia fracture is a closed injury it may take an average of 3 months for healing where is an open fracture may take 4 6 weeks longer even if the fracture pattern is similar.

As the severity of the open fracture increases the likelihood of complications and the length of time for healing also increases proportionally.