Flail chest and fractures aided by cast brace and mobility
Automobile accidents kill more Americans between the ages of 2 and 40 years than anything else, making them the fourth leading cause of death overall in this country.
One of the worst conditions that can follow such massive trauma is flail chest—severe blunt thoracic trauma in which a segment of the chest wall is essentially free to move into the thorax each time the patient tries to breathe. This condition becomes more ominous for each serious injury the patient suffers to another part of the body, especially fractures requiring skeletal traction. The reason? Pulmonary insufficiency. Mortality in such patients is routinely reported as ranging from 20% to 50%; in a group of seven studies including a total of 509 multiply-injured trauma patients, the average mortality was 36%
This toll can be cut, according to a Texas orthopedic surgeon, by
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
