Does a fracture require surgery?

In fact, not every fracture requires surgery. It still needs to be judged based on your actual situation. Most patients can get better with conservative treatment. The most important thing is to take care of yourself in life, so that you can speed up your recovery. You should also pay attention to the treatment of your wounds and not let your wounds get infected.

The purpose of first aid for fractures is to use simple and effective methods to save the patient's life, protect the affected limb, and transfer the patient safely and quickly so that they can receive proper treatment.

1. Assess the general condition First, assess the patient's general condition to see if he or she is in shock or has any damage to important organs such as the brain, chest, and abdomen. If the patient is in a state of shock, intravenous infusion should be opened immediately, and blood transfusion should be given if necessary. The primary task is to fight shock and treat life-threatening injuries to important organs. At the same time, attention should be paid to insulation and movement should be reduced as much as possible. For patients who are in a coma due to craniocerebral injury, care should be taken to keep the patient's airway open.

3. Wound treatment: Open fractures often cause bleeding, and most of the time, bleeding can be stopped by applying pressure bandages. If a large blood vessel ruptures and the bleeding is difficult to stop with a pressure bandage, a tourniquet can be used to stop the bleeding. An inflatable tourniquet is preferred as it is safer and the pressure used and the start time must be recorded during the operation.

Generally, the tourniquet should be relaxed after about 1 hour for upper limbs and about 1.5 hours for lower limbs. If bleeding needs to be stopped, press the wound and relax the tourniquet for about 10 minutes before inflating it to prevent ischemia and necrosis of the distal end of the affected limb. The wound should be covered with sterile dressing. If conditions permit, it should be bandaged with as clean cloth as possible to reduce re-contamination. If the fracture end has poked out of the wound and is contaminated but has not compressed the blood vessels or nerves, it should not be repositioned immediately to avoid bringing dirt deeper into the wound. Repositioning can be done after debridement.

4. Fracture fixation Proper fixation is an important measure in the first aid treatment of fractures. The purpose of emergency fixation of fractures is: 1. to reduce the movement of the fracture ends and relieve the patient's pain; 2. to avoid aggravating the secondary damage of soft tissues, blood vessels, nerves or internal organs during transportation; 3. to facilitate transportation. Any patient suspected of having a fracture should be treated as having a fracture.

Special plywood can be used for fixing. If conditions are unavailable, local materials such as planks, sticks, and branches can be used. Alternatively, for upper limb fractures, the affected limb can be fixed to the chest, and for lower limb fractures, the affected limb can be tied and fixed to the contralateral healthy limb. For fractures with obvious deformity, the affected limb can be properly tractioned and repositioned before fixation, but secondary nerve damage caused by blind repositioning should be avoided.

5. Rapid transfer: After initial treatment, the patient should be transferred as quickly as possible to the nearest hospital with the conditions and capabilities for further treatment.