Elbow Fracture

Typically there is a sudden onset of sharp, intense elbow or forearm pain t the time of the injury with pain felt either at the front, back or outer aspect of the elbow and forearm. There may also be swelling, bruising or pain on palpation around the affected area and in more severe instances there may be evident deformity

In such instances where there is notable pain following a traumatic incident / fall then it is encouraged that people attend accident and emergency. Once here, people would usually undergo an x-ray and a formal diagnosis is made.

Once diagnosed with a fracture, people are typically put into a cast and / or a sling for approximately 6 weeks to allow the tissues to heal.

Although your elbow may be immobilised in plaster to allow tissue healing, it is important that the strength and range of motion of the rest of the arm is maintained to avoid further complications.

Once the cast has been taken off the joint is likely to be stiff due to the arm being casted in a flexed position for a long period. Therefore we start increasing the range of movement before gradually increasing strength based exercises. There are a number of ways we can do this:

• Advice and education
  
• Stretching
  
• Manual Therapy
  
• Graded exercise programme for the entire upper limb
  
• Functional based exercise
  
• Symptom management (cryotherapy etc).