How to recover from radial nerve injury?

The radial nerve is in the lower middle 1/3 of the humerus. This part of the nervous system is relatively large and is more susceptible to injury. When this part of the nervous system is damaged, it often causes great damage to the patient's muscle tissue. For example, the patient cannot palm, cannot extend the finger joints, the thumb is adducted, etc., which will cause serious functional disorders in patients and significantly limit the ability to move their fingers. It is very harmful to people's daily life and work. This kind of nerve damage must be treated in time. This kind of injury is generally a nerve contusion, not a rupture injury, so the general conservative treatment method is still relatively good. You should also massage more in daily life, which will help the recovery of the disease.

treat

Closed humeral fracture complicated by radial nerve injury is mostly nerve contusion and less often a rupture. It is usually treated conservatively first, and surgical exploration is performed after three months if it is ineffective. Exploration includes exposure of the radial nerve in the axilla and upper arm and exposure of the radial nerve in the elbow and forearm. Appropriate neurosurgery was performed according to the nature of the neuropathy observed during the operation.

1. Use nerve decompression, release or suturing according to the injury. If necessary, elbow flexion, shoulder adduction and flexion, and nerve advancement can be used to overcome the defect. If the defects are large, nerve transplantation is performed. The effect of nerve anastomosis is better than that of median nerve and ulnar nerve.

2. If the nerve cannot be repaired, forearm flexor tendon transfer and extensor function reconstruction can be performed, which has better results. Triceps paralysis is not a serious problem because the elbow flexors relax and gravity straightens the elbow.

3. Before the nerve recovers, a suspension spring splint can be used to reduce excessive stretching of the extensor muscles and affect the therapeutic effect.

Differential Diagnosis

The diagnosis of this disease needs to be differentiated from the following two diseases:

1. Ulnar nerve injury

After the ulnar nerve is injured, in addition to the loss of sensation in the ulnar skin of the hand, the metacarpophalangeal joints of the ring and little fingers are hyperextended, and the interphalangeal joints are flexed into a claw shape. The thumb cannot be adducted, and the other four fingers cannot be abducted or adducted.

2. Median nerve injury

Supracondylar fractures of the humerus may occasionally cause compression injury to the median nerve, which often recovers on its own after fracture reduction. After the injury, the thumb, index and middle fingers cannot be flexed, the thumb cannot be abducted and opposed, and there is sensory impairment in the three and a half fingers on the radial side of the palm.