OnlineMedEd: Surgery: Subspecialty - "Ortho Hand" Flashcards
What is the usual order of symptom progression in carpal tunnel syndrome?
1) Pain
2) Paresthesia
3) Paralysis
The eponym for the sign that you get when flexing the wrists is ___________.
Phalen sign
The textbook answer for diagnosing carpal tunnel is ______________.
EMG
Review the treatments for carpal tunnel that you need to try before surgery.
1) NSAIDs and splints
2) Intraarticular steroids
3) Surgery (carpal tunnel release)
Describe jersey finger.
It is a torn flexor of one or more fingers (which can result if you grab someone’s jersey and they fling your hand open by running away). This presents with loss of flexion in the affected finger(s).
How should you manage jersey finger?
Splinting, NSAIDs, intraarticular steroids, and surgery – it will usually heal on its own.
The opposite injury to jersey finger is _____________.
mallet finger (inability to extend the finger, often from a ball impacting a flexed finger)
____________ is a stenosing tenosynovitis.
Trigger finger
This means inflammation pinches the tendon.
By physical exam, how can you differentiate trigger finger from mallet finger?
- Mallet finger: can’t extend the finger actively but passively goes smoothly
- Trigger finger: can’t extend the finger actively and passively happens with a pop
Which physical exam maneuver is diagnostic of DeQuervain’s tenosynovitis?
Pain along the thumb when the thumb is flexed beneath the fingers and the hand is deviated to the ulnar side.
This is the injury that people get from holding a baby’s head (or bodybuilders get from doing exercises in which they push against a bar with their thumb out).
Dupuytren’s contracture presents with an inability to ______________.
extend
Other than inability to extend, Dupuytren’s presents with ____________.
nodules on the palm
What is a felon?
An abscess of the pulp (the subcutaneous tissue beneath the pad) of the finger
Treat felons with ______________.
I&D
