Bone fracture occurs when there is a break or crack in a bone in your body. It is also said to be one of the medical conditions that a human would have to suffer from when the body is exposed to stress, impact, injury or some other medical conditions that would cause the bone to lose resistance. It is also known as bone break and broken bone.
According to statistics, there is an annual average of 6.8 million people in the United States who seek medical attention due to bone fracture. This is because it is one of the most usually occurring orthopedic problems. In a developed country, an average citizen may deal with at least two bone fractures in a lifetime.
Factors that Affect Bone Healing
For future reference in case bone fracture might happen to you or to someone close to you, you should know the factors affecting bone healing. There are several factors that may slow down or hasten the healing of your fractures but they are grouped into two different classes – systemic and local factors. These two factors affect the degree and the rate of the healing process.
• Nutrition. For healing to occur, energy is necessary which is why you need to undergo a metabolic stage where you will need a particular amount of protein and carbohydrates.
• Age. The younger the patients and the bones are, the faster the healing process works. Young patients have bones with the ability to recover from deformities soon enough and remodel them. However, the remodeling and recovering abilities of the bones decrease as they reach maturity.
• Hormones. These hormones that affect bone healing include the growth hormone, thyroid hormone, calcitonin, and corticosteroids. The last hormone mentioned can slow down the healing process.
• Systemic disease. Diseases which are discovered to slow down the healing of fractures are diabetes, osteoporosis, and others which result to immunocompromised state. Abnormal healing is also caused by diseases such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and Marfan’s syndrome.
• Degree of trauma. The more impact the injury has made on your bone and on the tissues surrounding it, the worse the healing will become. Slight injury will only likely cause mild contusions and will thus heal so easily. However, comminuted injuries which also damaged the surrounding tissues will not heal that quickly.
• Type of bone. Two types of bones – calcellous or spongy and cortical or compact bones – can be compared with the differences in the rate of their healing duration. The spongy bones have greater surface areas, more stable, and have better foods when put side by side with compact bones.
• Vascular injury. Regulate blood supply well for lack of it will drag down the healing process. This is one of the factors affecting bone healing especially in parts such a scaphoid bones, talus, and femoral head.
• Intraarticular fractures. Collagenasses can break the healing process of the bone as these fractures continue to be in contact with synovial fluid. The more that collegenasses partner with synovial fluid, the slower the healing process will even become.
• Degree of immobilization. The part where the fractured bone is should remain purposefully immobile in order to make sure that the process will not be interrupted. This is because with every interruption, the soft tissue or the already marginal blood supply will also be interrupted.
• Infection. Infections that are recently discovered to be impediments to the healing process of broken bones are those that cause edema and necrosis.
• Separation of bone ends. Soft tissue around the area of the bone fracture should not be disturbed through excessive traction, inadequate reduction, and interposition. This is because the healing process may stop.
• Local pathology. Union of bones may not also happen when it comes to the patient having diseases such as those that weakens the tissue of musculoskeletal parts.
Bone Healing in Itself
Once you broke your bone, the human body has certain protective features that that will allow the fractured area to be covered with protective blood clot plus the callus (fibrous tissue). These two elements will already be a constant in your body in order to cover the injured area safely. On the part of the fractured bone, new bones cells will blossom in order to start the healing process.
There are also several solutions that are available to commence the healing process of the bones. If you do not want to be late when it comes to bone healing, there are a few treatments from hospitals and nature.