How to Confirm Ankle Joint Penetration

Suspicious lacerations should be investigated, even if the X-ray is normal. A step-by-step pictorial guide. It is a busy Friday evening in the emergency department when you get called to the resuscitation bay for a 14-year-old female who was the restrained back seat passenger in a rollover motor vehicle crash. After a quick call to your significant other to ensure that your daughter is safe in bed, you proceed to evaluate this young patient. You are once again amazed by modern safety technology with the minimal amount of head, torso and abdominal trauma on this patient. After a thorough initial inspection you find that the patient has a large laceration to the lateral side of her left ankle, and swelling that suggests either a fracture or a severe sprain or dislocation. You do note that the laceration is directly over the ankle, and make a note that you will need to determine if that is an “open ankle” once you ensure there are no other life threatening emergencies. You order a set of ankle x-rays with the rest of your trauma work up and give the patient a dose of pain medications prior to shipping her off to get imaging. Once the patient return from her x-rays you are relieved to see there’s no fracture, and you wonder if this could simply be a bad sprain with an overlying laceration. Can this laceration just be irrigated and closed in the emergency department, or do you some other service to weigh in? Open ankle fractures are relatively common in trauma centers around...
Source: EPMonthly.com - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news