Unit 016.1 - Lo1 Be Able to Provide First Aid to an Infant and a Child with a Suspected Fracture and a Dislocation.

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Unit 016.1 - LO1 Be able to provide first aid to an infant and a child with a suspected fracture and a dislocation. Unit 016.1 - Describe the common types of fractures. Pediatric Fracture Patterns The mechanisms of fracture change as children age. Younger children are more likely to sustain a fracture while playing and falling on an outstretched arm. Older children tend to injure themselves while playing sports, riding bicycles, and in motor vehicle accidents. Also, because a child’s ligaments are stronger than those of an adult, forces which would tend to cause a sprain in an older individual will be transmitted to the bone and cause a fracture in a child. Caution should therefore be exercised when assessing a young child diagnosed with a sprain. 1. Plastic Deformation - A force produces microscopic failure on the tensile/convex side of bone which does not propagate to the concave side. The bone is angulated beyond its elastic limit, but the energy is insufficient to produce a fracture. - No fracture line is visible radiographically. - Unique to children - Most commonly seen in the ulna, occasionally in the fibula. - Bend in the ulna of < 20° in a 4 year old child should correct with growth. 2. Buckle fracture - Compression failure of bone that usually occurs at the junction of the metaphysis and the diaphysis - Commonly seen in distal radius. - Inherently stable - Heal in 3-4 weeks with simple immobilization. 3. Greenstick fracture - Bone is bent and the tensile/convex side of the bone fails. - Fracture line does not propagate to the concave side of the bone, therefore showing evidence of plastic deformation. - If the bone undergoes plastic deformation, it is necessary to break the bone on the concave side to restore normal alignment, as the plastic deformation recoils the bone back to the deformed position. 4. Complete fracture - Fracture

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