Bone Pathology

A discontinuity in a bone resulting from mechanical forces which exceed the bones ability to withstand them

Acute trauma - acute overwhelming force on normal bone Fragility - mechanical forces that would not ordinarily result in fracture Insufficiency - normal repetitive stress on abnormal bone Stress - abnormal loading on normal bone Pathological - bone may have a lesion that weakens it e.g bone density

Transverse - straight across Oblique - diagonal Spiral - around bone Comminuated - shattered bone Avulsion - part of bone breaks off Impacted - Fissure - crack in bone Greenstick - partial break

Closed - bone does not pierce skin Open - bone pierces skin

Complete - extends all the way across bone Incomplete - doesn’t cross bone completely

Stable - treated with bracing and rest Unstable - requires surgery to realign bones

Children’s bones are always growing, more flexible, smaller, heal faster and are able to remodel or reshape

1 - haematoma formation (week 1), blood vessels damaged causing a haematoma (collection of blood clots) to form 2 - fibrocartilaginous callus formation (weeks 2-3), granulation tissue develops within haematoma, fibroblasts (produce collagen), chondroblasts (produce cartilage) and osteoblasts (produce bone cells) create the callus which connects the fracture ends 3 - callus ossification (1-4 months), cartilaginous callus undergoes endochondral ossification to form a hard, calcified callus 4 - bone remodelling (4-12 months), internal callus becomes stronger by osteoblasts and external callus is reduced by osteoclasts

Shock, tetanus, wound infection, fat embolism, injury to vessels or nerves, DVT, adhesions

Health condition that weakens bones making them fragile and more likely to break, develops slowly and often only diagnosed when a fall causes a bone to break

When a bone density scan shows you have lower bone density than average for your age but not low enough to be classed as osteoporosis