Fractures & dislocations - Clinical medicine Flashcards
Define polytrauma/multiple trauma
Severe injury to more than one body system
Describe what the injury severity score and how it is calculated
- Injury Severity Score (ISS) Body split into 6 parts
- Squares of three highest scores are added
- Injury Severity Score > 15 associated with mortality of 10% and classified as major trauma
What does ABCDE represent in the advanced trauma life support system (ATLS) for managment of multiple trauma
A- Airway with cervical spine control
B - Breathing with ventiliation
C - Control of haemorrhage
D - Disability brain protection
E - Exposure
Describe ABCDE in the advanced trauma life support for managment of multiple injuries (ATLS)
A - Airway with Cervical spine control.
- Clear any obstructions in the airway, at the same time safeguarding the neck as in an accident potential for neck injury
B - Breathing with ventilation.
- Ensure they are breathing otherwise assist with breathing (ventilation)
C - Control of haemorrhage
- Stop bleeding, turn off the tap and replace lost blood
D - Disability brain protection.
- Maintain oxygenated blood flow to the brain protecting it
E - Exposure.
- Remove all clothing and inspect the whole body for injury, being careful with children and elderly as they may get cold rapidly
Describe what should be done in pre-hospital care for someone who has undergone multiple trauma
- Basic Life Support with maintenance of airway, breathing, circulation
- All injured patients should be given 100% oxygen to prevent secondary damage to the brain and to the cardiovascular system -best delivery system is a rebreathing bag which delivers 100% Oxygen
- “Scoop and run” in urban setting, most effective
- Crystalloid IV fluids such as normal Saline/Hartmanns are possibly harmful in major trauma
- Lost blood should be replaced by whole blood if available
- Endotracheal intubation-tube placed in the trachea and oxygen given
a) Describe the time and causes of death of the first peak of the trimodal death distribution
b) Decsribe the time and causes of death of the second peak of the trimodal death distribution
c) Describe the time and causes of death of the second peak of the trimondal death distribution
a) Time - first peak within seconds to minutes at accident site
Cause of deah due to lacerations in:
- Brain
- Brainstem
- Aorta
- Cord
- Heart
b) Time - second peak within minutes to hours at hospital
Cause of death due to:
- Brain haemorrage e.g. extradural and subdural
- Pelvic fractures
- Long bone fractures
- Abdomincal injuries
c) Time - days to weeks in hospital intensive care unit
Cause of death due to:
- Sepsis
- Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS)
- Acute repiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)
- Pneumonia
What is the best thing to do to save life and prevent severe complications occurring during the seocnd peak of the trimodal death distribution?
- “Golden hour” rapid assessment
- Resuscitation using ATLS
Describe the role of trauma teams
- On standby to recieve severly injured
- Team leader normally senior from accident and emergency department
- Representatives from: Anaesthetics, general surgery, ortrhopaedics, urology, neurosurgery, facio-maxillary
a) Describe the body’s physiological response to trauma
b) Draw the systemic response graph
a) After trauma, there is a balance between the systemic inflmammatory response and the counter-regulatory anti-inflammatory response
b)
a) What is recommended not do when a patient is undergoing systemic inflammatory response syndrome? and why?
b) When does this settle?
a) Recommended not to perfrom surgery as there is a high complication rate
b) 4-5 days
Describe the two-hit theory
- First trauma (first hit) can lead to a severe response of multitple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) / Acute repiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)
- If they do not go through MODS/ARDS and surgery is performed it is called second hit. They can get better or go through MODS/ARDS
- Timing of surgical procedure is very crutial
Describe what the ‘trauma traid of death’ OR ‘terrible traid’
- Medical term describing the combination of hypothermia, acidosis, and coagulopathy (a condition that affects how your body clots)
- This combination is commonly seen in patients who have sustained severe traumatic injuries
- It should be avoided
What is involved in the ‘trauma triad of death’ or ‘terrible triad’?
- Acidosis
- Hypothermia
- Coagulopathy
What occurs if a patient is not fit for surgery after multiple trauma?
Damage control orthapaedics occurs
What are the principles of managment damage control orthopaedics (DCO)?
- Control of bleeding
- Arterial repair
- Tension pneumothorax (air accumulates between the chest wall and the lung and increases pressure in the chest, reducing the amount of blood returned to the heart)
- Compartment syndrome
- Provisonal fracture stability
Aim is to keep them alive
Where are the four majour sources of bleeding found?
- Chest
- Abdomen
- Pelvis
- Extremities
a) What may you have do when bleeding is found in the chest?
b)
- Chest CT scan
- Put chest drain
- Thoractomy (open chest to stop bleeding)
What may you have to do when bleeding is found in the abdomen?
- Abdomen fast scan
- CT scan
- Laportatomy (Surgical procedure involving small incisions through the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity)
What may you have to do when there is a pelvis fracture/bleeding
- Pelvis binder –> angiography –> embolization
- If that doesn’t work you do pelvis packing
What are the damages that can occur from a pelvic fracture?
- Organs may be damaged including the muscular pelvic floor
- Severe bleeding occurs from the fractured pelvis, pelvic organs, (the highly vascular), pelvic floor and major vessels
Describe how the pelvi binder is put on and its role
- Pelvic binder over the greater trochanter and binding both legs together
- This stabilises the pelvis to stop the bleeding
What do you do after a pelvic binder fails to stop the bleeding?
Embolisation (Sent to angiography suite and wire inserted by interventional radiologists which embolises and stops the bleeding)
What do you do if pelvic binding and angiology & emobilisation fails to stop the bleeding or patient is in extremis?
Pelvis packing
What is acute compartment syndrome?
Rise of pressure within a closed space resulting in ischaemia of the components
When is compartment sydrome most common?
After lower leg and forearm fractures
What is the main clinical symptom of compartment syndrome
- Severe pain, often unrelieved by opiods and worse on passive stretch
- Parathesia and numbness of limb
Describe compartment syndrome after a tibia fracture
- The tibia fractures and bleeds into compartments
- The fascial covering is unyielding, so the pressure rises in one or more compartments
- Lymphatics are compressed shut down with no clinical signs
- Bleeding continues and the pressure rises further
- Small vessels to muscles are shut off causing severe unremitting ischaemic pain, and painful on passive stretching by moving toes and foot
- Small vessels shut off to nerves leads to paraesthesia, numbness, and paralysis
- Major arteries shut off late stage by which time the whole of the limb is dead
a) What is the treatment of compartment syndrome?
b) What does the treatment aim to do?
c) What is the possible consequence of failing to recognise or treat compartment syndrome?
a) Fasciotomy
b) The treatment is to release the compartment fascia and to correct any underlying cause if possible
c) May result in limb amputation
How is compartment pressure measured?
- Intermittent by a metre
- Continuous with annula in compartment
Describe ‘acute repspiratory distress system (ARDS)’
- Fat globules lodging in small vessels leads to local inflammation
- This leads to impaired gas exchange, hypoxia and can lead to multiple organ failure
What are the advantages of putting an external stabiliser for long bone fractures?
Reduced:
- ARDS
- Pneumonia
- Ventilator days
- ITU days
- Hospital days
- Systemic infections
What are the principles of treatment of open fractures?
- Photograph
- Cover with antiseptic dressing
- Antibiotics, splint
- Theatre within 6 hours
- Debridement
- Stabilisation
What are the advantages of early spinal fracture fixtation?
- Less pulmonary complications
- Shorter length hospital stay
What is a fracture?
A soft tissue envelope in which there happens to be a bone that is broken