The Most Common Hand Injuries Seen in an Emergency Room
The hand may seem small, but it is complex when it comes to its design and function, with lots of small bones, 27 bones to be precise, tendons and so forth coming together to create what is a remarkable work of atomic engineering. As small as it may seem, any injuries to its underlying structures can cause one lots of issues. This is because, our hands play an important role in the many activities we do in the day to day. From picking up things, cooking, writing, driving, brushing our teeth, typing and many other activities, our hands are pretty much front and center of most of our activities at home, at work and even leisure activities such as when exercising or playing sports. This just goes to show how a hand injury can wreak havoc in our daily activities. Having said that, given that we use them for lots of activities, our hands are always under the threat of injury. We can injure our hands in the kitchen, at work while operating work machinery, during falls when playing sports and so forth. Hand injuries account for a significant amount of cases of visits to the emergency room due to injuries. Having said that, there are those hand injuries that are more commonly seen in the emergency room than others and with the help of the subject matter experts over at the excellent frontlineer.com, this article will look to highlight some of the most common hand injuries seen in an emergency room.
One of the most common hand injuries that are seen in an emergency room are hand lacerations. These are basically injuries due to cuts on the hand. There are many causes of such injuries form suffering a cut on your hand when in the kitchen chopping vegetables among other food stuff, suffering a cut when operating machinery either at work or in the backyard such as cuts from working with large nails among other scenarios. Severe lacerations are always handled in the emergency room due to how important our hands are to us. If the bleeding is severe and can’t be stopped, if your hand is turning pale or blue in color, if you are experiencing numbness after a cut or if you have suffered a deep cut or even have part of the hand, say a finger or part of it, chopped off, then you should head over to an emergency room as soon as you can, with the highly rated frontlineer.com being one of the best places to visit. Another very common hand injury is a high-pressure injection injury which occurs when one is injected by a high-pressure injection device such as a grease or paint gun. It usually causes symptoms such as severe pain and swelling and is yet another hand injury that is common in an emergency room.
Hand sprains are yet another of the most common injuries that are seen in the emergency room. One can suffer a sprain, such as a sprained finger, when the ligaments supporting the affected finger are stretched beyond their limits or are even torn completely. Cases of severe sprains, which include complete tears of ligaments are common in the emergency room. These sort of injuries are commonly as a result of playing sports or from falls where in the event of using your hand to break the fall, you bend a finger or two backwards leading to the tearing of the ligaments supporting it. Treatment is usually through placing of a splint to immobilize the finger and allow the finger to heal. Hand infections are also another of the most common hand injuries seen in the emergency room, such as the excellent frontlineer.com. Most of the time infection ensues after suffering a bite, either from an animal or from fights where someone strikes a tooth of someone they are fighting with. Most of the time cases of infection in the hand involve cleaning the wound and administering antibiotics to treat the infection. Infections should always be taken seriously as if not, they could spread to the blood causing sepsis, which is potentially life-threatening.
Hand fractures are yet another of the common hand injuries seen in the emergency room, such as the excellent frontlineer.com. Hand fractures basically involve the fracturing of one or more of the many bones in the hand. They are usually as a result of blunt trauma to the hand such as being hit with a baseball bat, falls, sports injuries, crush injuries among others. Hand fractures can be quite painful with other symptoms other than pain including deformity, a decreased range of motion in the affected hand, tenderness, swelling among others. Treatment here usually involves immobilizing the injured hand to allow the broken bones to heal as well as closing of any wound in cases of open fractures. Burns are also another one of the most common hand injuries seen in an emergency room. Burns are quite common, considering we participate in activities that can cause burns everyday such as cooking. Other than severe thermal heat burn injuries, chemical burns are also common as are as severe burns due to frostbite, especially during winter.
The above are some of the most common hand injuries seen in an emergency room, keeping in mind that the best place to go for such injuries is over at the highly regarded frontlineer.com
