Hand Fracture Surgery corrects, fixes, and aligns any broken or dislocated bone found in the hand that cannot be treated with non-surgical treatment.
What is it?
Hand fractures are common breaks and can happen during everyday tasks. Accidently slamming your hand in a door, playing baseball, and jamming your finger on a basketball can fracture the metacarpal or phalange bones in your hands. Certain fractures that puncture through the skin and others that might be caused by a crush injury can require surgery. The surgery will help to remove any dead bone or bone fragments that cannot be used to repair the fracture. If a bone punctures the skin, surgery will clean out the wound and help to prevent infection. Hand fracture surgery will also align and secure the bones in their proper place.
What should I do to prepare?
Preparing for any surgery can be stressful. It is best to understand and talk with your doctor about what will happen during the surgery and what to expect after it is complete. Having a family member or close friend with you the day of surgery can help alleviate some stress. Scans and preoperative testing will be conducted to determine the best approach to fix the fracture in the hand. A patient should not eat or drink after the midnight before surgery. Rest and immobilization may be necessary post-surgery to help in the healing process. This may require time off from work and other physical activities.
What happens during the process?
An open fracture or a crush injury will most likely require surgery to fix the breaks in the hand. A combination of pins, screws, plates, and wires are used to set and stabilize the fractured pieces of bone. The doctor will clean the area around the fracture to make sure no bone fragments or any foreign object is in the surrounding tissue. Open fractures are more prone to infection since the bone is exposed to open air. Once the fracture is set back into the correct position, the incision will be closed and bandaged up.
What are the risks and possible complications?
Any surgery involving bones, muscles, or tendons will pose a risk for re-injury or injury to another part of the surrounding area. Infections, bleeding, and numbness or tingling are possible with this surgery. Weakness and loss of function are also a possibility with Hand Fracture Surgery. There is also the chance that there will be damage to blood vessels and nerves within the hand and wrist. There is the chance that further surgery may need to be done later down the road to remove any excess bone growth that occurs during the healing process.
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Image Source:
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