Thursday, October 1, 2015

Foot and ankle #fractures hard to find at times after accident

#Injuries such as #slipandfalls #motorvehicle #mva  may not result in the typical mechanism of injury that we study in school in trauma classes.  The pattern of injury can be just plain crushed or twisted or retwisted (if there is such a term) in various ways vs a typical mechanism or trajectory.    The foot contains 28 bones and a good portion of them are flat bones which means they will be hard to examine via a plain film which is 2 dimensional in nature.   CT or MRI is often requested after a severe injury with unknown or difficult mechanism of injury.     At our center in #Naples, FL when encountering such trauma, an xray is initially taken, if the pain level of the patient does not correlate with the xray findings an MRI, CT would get ordered to exam the bones and ligaments in more detail.  Often injuries are missed or delayed in care without the proper imaging and suspicions. CT's are better for bone injuries while MRI's are more comprehensive and used more for soft tissue , tendon, ligament injuries.   

When injured in #MVA, #workerscompensation injuries, always tell your doctor everything that you remember.  Detail is important in figuring out the injuries that may affect you for life.    This history will also help when multiple specialists are required to be involved in your care. 

Seek immediate medical attention. 

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