Importance of Typing Femur Fractures
I’m Ed Smith, a Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer. Those who have broken a bone before likely remember visiting a physician and perhaps being confused by the medical jargon surrounding their injury. This language is important because it classifies the bone fracture that they have suffered, helping to guide the tests, treatment, and prognosis.
Femur Fractures: Why Care?
A study was published in the Harvard Journal of Radiology within the past few years describing the seriousness of femur fractures themselves and the importance of classifying these femur fractures. Femur fractures are important because they represent some of the most common and costly bone fractures in the medical community. Patients who have suffered a broken leg will be unable to move around effectively while their leg heals. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that their leg will return to full strength because, as the paper points out, many femur fractures occur in old age. The paper also notes that a significant proportion of the elderly population will suffer a femur fracture at some point in their life.
Watch Youtube Video – Fracture Femur Types – Everything you need to know. The video is intended for educational purposes only. By watching the video you will learn some of the common names and types of femur fractures. Be sure to see your physician or promptly get to the emergency room or dial 911, if you think you have a broken leg.
The Risk Factors
The journal’s article describes some of the risk factors for suffering a femur fracture because it is more efficient and cost-effective to prevent an injury from developing rather than to treat one that has already occurred. The risk factors include a family history of broken bones, consumption of alcohol and caffeine, sedentary lifestyle, personal history of fractures, use of psychiatric medications, visual impairment, nursing home residence, tall height, and dementia. What people may have noticed is that all of these risk factors can lead to falls, giving rise to traumatic injury. Falls, notably stairway falls, are the number one reason why someone succumbs to bone fractures. When slip and fall accidents are combined with osteoporosis, this rate increases further.
Classifying Femur Fractures
There are several ways that people can classify femur fractures including displaced versus non-displaced, open fractures or closed, distal versus proximal, and within or outside of the hip joint. While the paper does describe how the fractures are classified, it highlights the importance of making this classification in the first place. While this language may be confusing to patients, this classification is crucial because it determines the possible complications that can develop and the prognosis of the patient. For example, a fracture that is displaced will require surgery, a significant difference from an injury that goes straight into the cast. Furthermore, a fracture involving the hip joint has a higher risk of complications because it involves this joint and can be responsible for injury to other tissue, leading to additional comorbidities. Therefore, the importance of typing femur fractures promptly improves the overall outcome of treatment.
Related Articles by Ed Smith ~
- What are Injury Lawyers?
- Physical Therapy May be Needed to Heal a Broken Leg
- Femur Fracture Statistics
- Femur Fracture Imaging Studies
- Femur Fracture Surgery
Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer
I’m Ed Smith, a Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer. Many patients have suffered a broken bone; however, some are more serious than others. Anyone who has suffered a traumatic injury should contact me at (916) 921-6400 for friendly, free advice. I maintain a toll-free line at (800) 404-5400.
I am a member in the California chapter of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum. We represent some of the top-rated litigators in the United States. Trial lawyers in this forum have won million-dollar case verdicts for past clients.
Please take some time to view the prior verdicts and settlements.
See what my clients have to say about their experience with my law firm on Avvo, Yelp, and Google.
Source of The Importance of Typing Femur Fractures – Harvard Journal of Radiology
Image Attribution: Wikimedia Commons
:dr bw
cv