1. Wrist Fractures Are Very Common
Approximately one-sixth of all emergency room visits are for some sort of wrist injury, and out of all the fractures seen in the emergency room, about one-sixth are wrist fractures. There are 250,000 to 300,000 wrist fractures per year in the United States, and they occur mostly in two age groups: the young and the elderly. Children are constantly running and playing and, of course, falling, while elderly people have thinner bones and poorer balance, which also leads to these fractures. However, anybody can break a wrist, especially after suffering trauma from events such as car accidents or sports injuries.
2. Avoid Dangerous Tendencies
When you fall, your first instinct is to put your hands out to cushion the landing. But in doing so, your wrists are often forced backwards and you can easily fracture your wrist. If you are doing activities that have a high risk of falling (skateboarding, snowboarding or rollerblading, for example), you might want to wear wrist guards. These can prevent your wrist from bending backwards.
3. Watch for Symptoms After Wrist Trauma
Symptoms of a wrist fracture include inability to move the wrist, along with pain and swelling at the impact site. Oftentimes, the wrist will hang oddly or be obviously deformed. Severely displaced fractures can cause a "dinner fork" deformity where the forearm and hand are no longer in line with each other, and the hand is translated backwards, making it look like a fork. Hold up a fork sideways: Imagine that your forearm is the handle and your broken wrist is the curved part of the fork. If you experience any of these symptoms or suspect that you've broken your wrist after trauma, you should seek medical attention immediately and obtain X-rays.
4. Consider Wrist Anatomy
The wrist joint is where the forearm meets the hand. The forearm is made up of two main bones: the radius and the ulna. The radius is the larger of the two bones in the forearm, and is the most commonly broken bone in the arm. A distal radius fracture occurs at the end of the radius (near the wrist). This is the softer metaphyseal portion of the bone, where it is weakest. Fractures of the radial shaft, where the cortex is thickest, are less common.
5. Consider the Severity and Location of Wrist Fractures
Wrist fractures were originally named after the doctors who first described them, such as Colles, Smith and Barton. These described the pattern of the fracture, but not all fractures were able to fit nicely into these groupings. Today, fractures are classified according to the severity of the injury, as well as the involvement of the joint surface. When a fractured bone pokes through the skin, it is called an "open" fracture. When the skin is intact, it is a "closed" fracture. When a bone is broken into more than two pieces, it is called a "comminuted" fracture. When the fracture extends into the joint itself, it is called an intra-articular ("inside joint") fracture. Otherwise, it is called an extra-articular ("outside joint") fracture. Intra-articular fractures may cause joint stiffness and arthritis because the joint surface becomes affected.
Most distal radius fractures are closed, extra-articular fractures. Older patients have thinner bones and tend to have more comminuted fractures, which may break into the joint itself. They often have closed, comminuted intra-articular distal radius fractures.
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