Employment of Braces After Internal Fixation

Over the years, medical practitioners and orthopedic implants manufacturers have experimentally and clinically exhibited that movement at the fracture site occurs when a blocked fracture is treated by using the closed functional bracing technique. The entire foundation of functional bracing is based upon the bone foundation value of this motion. It is found that after the preliminary motion at the fracture site, orthopedic implants like fracture brace provides firmness to the limb and helps to stabilize it against any kind of angular irregularities. Therefore, the brace will not be able to provide complete stability to the limb until motion occurs at the fracture site.

With techniques like rigid plate fixation, no motion is present at the fracture site. Thus, if a brace is applied to a limb with a fracture that has been stabilized using a device, it will not be able to provide load protection to the fixation device or stiffness to the limb, until and unless some motion has taken place at the injured location. For the motion to crop up at the fracture site, failure of the fixation must occur. Based on these facts we can conclude that rigid fracture fixation and functional bracing are incompatible.

Nowadays, different types of internal fixation are used by ortho surgical implants and trauma implants specialists such as loosely fitting and flexible intramedullary nails or interlocking nails. In these cases, the rate of success is not dependent on the rigid fixation of the fragments and some twisting and torsional movement is permissible at the fracture site, if necessary. This can be achieved by using a brace in cases where the degree of stability provided by the nail is not appropriate or satisfactory.

Orthopedic instruments like Fracture braces may be efficiently employed in combination with internal fixation of fractures if one adheres to the fundamentals of each technique. Being the top trauma implant manufacturers in world, we ask your opinion on the idea of using braces to support fractures that have been internally fixed.