Blog

Read the latest health and medical information to make informed decisions about your health care concerns.

When to call a Hand Surgeon for wrist pain
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
A hand surgeon is a professional specializing in care for this area of the body. One of the key times to call on this professional is when there is pain located in the wrist. This can occur to both arms at one time or just one. The doctor’s job is to find out what is causing the pain and then to offer solutions for it. Numerous conditions can lead to this, but it is not possible to know which you are suffering from until your doctor provides more information. Sometimes, a family care doctor will refer you to a specialist that will be able to do the work necessary.
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Treatment options for Thumb CMC Arthritis
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Thumb CMC arthritis is a common condition that affects millions of people worldwide. The “opposable thumb” that has allowed us to develop fine motor coordination is made possible by the CMC joint, located at the base of the thumb. Also known as the basal joint, it’s the most important joint in your hand, allowing you to pinch, manipulate objects, and to grasp items of various sizes. When this joint is painful, tasks that seem so simple, such as writing, turning keys, or buttoning, can become burdensome.
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Association between lack of sleep and teen sports injuries
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Hours of sleep per night were significantly associated with a decreased likelihood of injury, according to the study results. In addition, the higher the grade levels of the athlete, the greater the likelihood of injury – 2.3 times greater for each additional grade in school. Gender, weeks of participating in sports per year, hours of participation per week, number of sports, strength training, private coaching and subjective assessments of “having fun in sports” were not significantly associated with injury.
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Evaluation of the patient with shoulder complaints
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Shoulder pain is a common musculoskeletal complaint that may be due either to intrinsic disorders of the shoulder or referred pain. The former include injuries and acute or chronic inflammation of the shoulder joint, tendons, surrounding ligaments, or periarticular structures.
A complex network of anatomic structures endows the human shoulder with tremendous mobility, greater than any other joint in the body. The shoulder girdle is composed of three bones (the clavicle, scapula, and proximal humerus) and four articular surfaces (sternoclavicular, acromioclavicular, glenohumeral, and scapulothoracic) (figure 1A-C). The glenohumeral joint, commonly referred to as the shoulder joint, is the principal articulation.
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Reverse surgical solution for a painful shoulder
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
A standard shoulder replacement, a decades old treatment for severe shoulder arthritis, would likely not have worked for her due to her deficient rotator cuff. However, a recently developed – and radically different – prosthesis, called a reverse total shoulder, offered the best chance of decreasing her pain and improving shoulder function.
‘A normal shoulder is a ball-and-saucer joint, with its stability and motion governed to a large extent by the surrounding rotator cuff musculature,’ said Dr Omer Ilhai, an orthopedic surgeon at The Methodist Hospital in Houston. ‘In arthritis, the smooth cartilage overlying and cushioning the surface of the bones is worn away, leaving rough, exposed bone surfaces to rub against each other. This bone-on-bone contact is very painful and usually associated with joint stiffness.’
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Regain use of your fingers with the aid of a hand surgeon
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
If you have a problem with the joints in your hands, you may need to see a hand surgeon. The reason why this professional is more qualified to handle your condition is they have gone to school and received an extensive amount of training about this part of your body. They know how it works and can identify problems that would interfere with its function. If you have a condition that warrants more than self care, your hand surgeon will be able to determine what the problem is and provide you with the best care possible. Since this part of the body is made of many nerves and delicate structures, it is important that you seek out professional care whenever there is pain.
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What causes joint pain: From arthritis to lupus to tennis elbow
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
What causes joint pain? Joint pain refers to any kind of discomfort that occurs where two bones or more come together. This relatively innocuous term can describe anything from minor soreness associated with too much typing to the excruciating pain and inflammation that comes with some forms of cancer and immune disorders. While joint pain usually isn’t an emergency, being able to identify its source can help you determine whether your discomfort is a sign of something more serious.
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Physiotherapy reduces pain in patients with shoulder problems
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Most patients who receive physiotherapy after surgery experience that pain is reduced by a half within a few months. Most of them are free of pain after one to two years. This is the conclusion of a thesis presented at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
“Age-related changes in tissue combined with acute trauma can contribute to shoulder problems. The most common cause of such problems, however, is compression of the tendons in the shoulder due to a reduction in the space available”, says Ingrid Hultenheim Klintberg, physiotherapist and researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology.
Patients with these symptoms should initially be treated by physiotherapy. Those for whom physiotherapy does not have an adequate effect are offered surgical treatment, in which the space available is enlarged and the tendons repaired, if necessary. The two most common procedures are known as arthroscopic subacromial decompression and rotator cuff repair.
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Common shoulder injury treated non-surgically may increase chances of return-to-play
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Surgically repairing a painful shoulder injury in baseball players known as a SLAP tear (superior labral) varies widely and often doesn’t allow for return to play at the same level as before the injury. However, researchers presenting their findings at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland suggest that nonsurgical treatment may be more beneficial.
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Rehabilitation Following Rotator Cuff Surgery Requires Change
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
A new Hospital for Special Surgery study suggests that the current rehabilitation used for patients undergoing tendon-bone repairs such as rotator cuff repair may be partially to blame for the high rates of failed healing after surgery. Experiments in a rat model of this injury suggest that immobilizing the limb for four to six weeks after surgery, rather than quickly starting physical therapy, improves healing.
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Treatment of traumatic anterior shoulder dislocation in patients older than 60 years
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
The accurate diagnosis of associated injuries after traumatic anterior shoulder dislocation in patients older than 60 is critical for the recovery of shoulder function because more than half of patients had rotator cuff tears or anterior capsulolabral lesions, which may lead to recurrent shoulder dislocation.
Satisfactory clinical outcomes without recurrence were obtained after early detection of abnormalities and different treatment modalities based on associated injuries and the number of dislocations experienced.
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Is early passive motion exercise necessary after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair?
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Early passive motion exercise has been the standard rehabilitation protocol after rotator cuff repair for preventing postoperative stiffness. However, recent approaches show that longer immobilization may enhance tendon healing and quality.
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New treatment for tennis elbow
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Steroid injections are no longer routinely recommended for lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow). Instead, physical therapists offer an alternative treatment in the form of something called iontophoresis.
In this article, the use of steroid injection is compared with iontophoresis delivered in two different ways. Iontophoresis uses a small electric current to drive steroid medication through the skin. It is a noninvasive method of reducing the pain of tennis elbow.
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Prevent back, neck and shoulder pain from prolonged sitting and bad posture
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Back, neck and shoulder pain is the natural result of prolonged sitting at work behind a computer, as is bad posture. This can cause headaches and excessive tension in neck, shoulders, arms, forearms, wrists, back, hips, thighs and legs.
Preventing back and neck pain while sitting is not an exact science as there are many differing opinions on the subject. However, there are some common denominators on which most chiropractors and other medical professionals agree:
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A new angle on tennis injuries offered by markerless motion capture
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Researchers studied three types of tennis serves, and identified one in particular, called a “kick” serve, which creates the highest potential for shoulder injury.
The study examined the difference in body positioning for the three serves. Researchers measured the distance between the vertical center line of a player’s body and the hitting surface of the racquet when the player hit the ball. For the kick serve, players swung the racquet closer to the center – about 21 cm (8 inches) and 16 cm (6 inches) closer than for the flat serve and slice serve, respectively. The players also extended the racquet farther behind them for the kick serve: 8 cm (3 inches) farther than for the flat serve.
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Pitchers: Elbow position not a predictor of injury
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Elbow position alone appeared to not affect injury rates and performance in college-level, male pitchers say researchers presenting at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine’s Specialty Day in San Francisco, CA.
“The elbow’s position in relation to an injury and enhanced performance in baseball pitchers is highly dependent upon the trunk’s position,” said lead researcher, Carl W. Nissen, MD of Elite Sports Medicine and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Farmington, CT. “Our research showed that the pitching motion is complex and a direct relationship between true elbow position and how much stress is placed on a joint does not appear to exist.”
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Nearly half of older women with arm fractures have low vitamin D
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
A new study has shown that 44% of postmenopausal women treated for a distal radius fracture (DRF) were either vitamin D deficient or insufficient, researchers reported here at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons 2012 Annual Meeting.
Their vitamin D levels were significantly lower than in control subjects, reported Hyun S. Gong, MD, from Seongnam, and Cheol Ho Song, from Seoul, Korea.
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Insights from AAOS: Using Social Media to Enhance Patient Care
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
At this morning’s AAOS event, Dr. Raymond Raven III, MD shared how he leverages social media to engage with patients, grow his hand & upper extremity surgery practice, and raise awareness of medical issues.
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A show of hands to explore disability
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
Andrew Dawson has nice hands, and he knows it. He’s fussy about moisturizing them and takes extra caution around the oven, although he uses power tools without hesitation.
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Prosthesis helps Medal of Honor hero stay with Rangers
Posted on: 05-Oct-2016
There was a little bit of a meat skirt, for lack of better words, hanging around the edges. It was oozing. I could see the radius and ulna bone sticking up maybe about half an inch.
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