Conditions We Treat

Acute Injuries

• Dislocation: Any joint in the body can slip out of its correct position on impact. It's often hard for the patient to tell if the bones are dislocated or broken, so this becomes a medical emergency.

• High-impact injuries: A fall from a height, an auto accident, or one of many other accidents can displace the bones or shatter them into pieces.  An orthopaedic traumatologist has the skills and experience to repair this kind of severe injury.

• Hip joint fractures: Any break in a bone is called a fracture. When the hip joint breaks, you lose the ability to sit comfortably, bend from your pelvis, or walk on the leg with the injured hip. The joint must be repaired or replaced to restore normal movement. This is a common injury in the elderly, because people lose their balance more easily as we get older.

• Severe fractures in the extremities: Our orthopaedic traumatologists are ready to repair severe fractures in the arms, wrists, hands, legs, ankles, and feet. These skilled physicians see challenging cases regularly, and they have experience with repairing shattered bones, complex fractures, and multiple breaks.

• Simple fractures: From a child's simple ankle fracture to an adult's broken arm, our trauma surgeons are ready to relieve pain and restore the use of a fractured limb.

Complications and Chronic Conditions

Patients often come to our Orthopaedic Trauma team to seek our expert advice about an injury that won't heal, or an old injury that healed improperly. Our traumatologists and orthopaedic surgeons can address any complication or chronic issue.

• Nonunion (Pseudoarthrosis): Most fractures heal after treatment by a qualified orthopaedic physician or surgeon. When a bone does not heal, there may be a issue with the bone's stability—placement of the broken pieces and the means used to secure them there, such as a cast, a brace, or steel screws or wire. If the bone does not receive enough blood, it can resist healing. A well-balanced diet is also important, so the bone receives the right amount of the vitamins and minerals it needs to grow healthy cells. If your bones are not healing properly, your UR Medicine orthopaedic traumatologist will work closely with you to determine the cause of the nonunion and correct the problem if possible.

• Mal-union: In some cases, the bones of a fracture heal, but they are not in proper alignment. The result can be a shortening of a limb, or a twist in the affected arm or leg. We see this kind of problem in people who smoke, patients with anemia or diabetes, or in patients who take certain medications. Mal-union also can happen if the bone is not kept stable during the healing process. Additional surgery may be required to repair and stabilize the bone in the proper position.

• Osteomyelitis: This bone infection can come from bone surgery, a staph infection, or simply from the bacteria that create this infection, which live on the skin or inside the nose. In some cases, germs from pneumonia, a urinary tract infection, or another bacterial illness can travel in your bloodstream to a weak spot in a bone. Children can get this infection in their growth plates, the soft areas at the ends of the arms and legs where the bones develop. Pain, swelling and redness in the affected area are the main symptoms, along with fever, chills, and tiredness.

• Limb length discrepancy: If you have had an accident and one of your arms or legs is now shorter than the other, you have a limb length discrepancy. This may happen when the bone is broken in many pieces and does not heal properly. In children, the injured arm or leg actually may grow to be longer than the uninjured one, because broken bones in children sometimes grow faster after they heal. Some slight differences in limb length can be treated without surgery, but a major difference can require a surgical procedure.