Fracture Management: Basic Principles

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Interventional Critical Care

Abstract

When managing polytrauma patients, it is important to promptly identify, reduce, and immobilize fractures and dislocations to minimize motion of the fracture fragments and stabilize the joint. This prevents further trauma to the surrounding soft tissues, muscles, and underlying structures. This can be achieved using closed or open reduction techniques. The goal of this chapter is to introduce skeletal traction and external fixation as two methods to achieve closed reduction of fractures and dislocations in the unstable trauma patient. The basic principles and techniques of each will be discussed.

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Correspondence to Jenna Garofalo MSN, FNP .

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Garofalo, J., Karunakar, M. (2016). Fracture Management: Basic Principles. In: Taylor, D., Sherry, S., Sing, R. (eds) Interventional Critical Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25286-5_38

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25286-5_38

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-25284-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-25286-5

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