Healed fractures

On 20 May 1992, a Dutch periodical published an article in which they mentioned the possibility of healing fractures with mother-of-pearl and coral. With this method painful operations could be avoided. The article was illustrated with an ancient Maya skull which showed a hole filled with mother-of-pearl. The ancient Mayas were well ahead of their time. 

By the end of the 1980s this method had surfaced again in medicine. A group of French scientists discovered that coral is very useful when healing fractures. The French firm Inoteb now obtains coral from seas all over the world, cleans it and prepares it for implantation into the body. 

Longitudinal recrystallized zones away from the extensively deformed end zones are all associated with healed fractures. 

Mackwell et al. (1985) found that when specimens that had been deformed under anhydrous conditions were subsequently further deformed under wet conditions, there was a significant change in microstructure. TEM observations revealed enhanced formation of dislocation walls, despite the reduced stress levels. This observation was interpreted as due to enhanced dislocation climb under wet conditions. However, the two walls illustrated by Mackwell et al. (1985) could be interpreted as healed or partly healed fractures. One wall consists of a very irregular network of dislocations with many bubbles, particularly at dislocation intersections. 

Field and optical microscope studies showed that the fault plane is defined by a 2-3 cm wide cataclastic zone that is bounded laterally by a 1-3 m envelope of plastic and cataclastic deformation. Outside this envelope, the quartz microstructures displayed no evidence of significant deformation. Quartz in the fault envelope contains well-developed deformation bands, deformation lamellae, and intragranular healed fractures, which are visible at all scales of observation. 

Figure 9.38 is a BF image of a healed fracture that is about 4 / m wide. The fracture walls are straight and separated by a band of new quartz, which has grown in the open crack. The bands of electron-beam damage centers (Section 8.13.1) parallel to the fracture walls probably mark the positions of trace impurity concentrations formed at incremental growth... 

Figure 9.38. BF image of a healed fracture in the quartz of the deformed envelope of a narrow cataclastic fault zone, which forms part of a thrust belt in the Cantabrian Mountains of northwest Spain. (Courtesy of Martyn Drury.)...

For decades orthopedics was a physical specialty. The physician provided therapy to manipulate bones and joints to restore alignment, and then applied casts or braces to maintain the structure until it healed. Fractures of the hip, among other injuries, were considered un-... 

Planar fractures with polished surfaces and slickenside lineation are interpreted by most authors to be tectonic in origin. Arthur et al. (1980) and Carson et al. (1982) stressed that mineralization is a meaningful criterion for the identification of natural fractures, whereas Lundberg and Casey Moore (1986) added healed fractures which restore cohesion across the fracture plane as an equal criterion. Most planar... 

Quartz cement occurs as syntaxial overgrowths on detrital quartz grains (Fig. 14B) heals fractures in detrital quartz, and forms discrete prismatic crystals (Fig. 14A). It is more common in the coarse-... 

Fluid inclusions in quartz cement are situated both in close proximity to the boundary between detrital quartz grains and cement as well as within the overgrowths themselves. The inclusions chosen for microthermometry are interpreted as primary inclusions that were trapped during growth of quartz cement. Inclusions located in healed fractures were not selected for analysis. 

Various secondary ossification centres develop in the pelvis at different ages. Accessory ossification centres may develop at the tip of the ischial spine and the rim of the acetabulum between 14 and 18 years of age (Fig. 7.26). The normal apophyseal centres on the inferior border of the ischium (Fig. 7.27) should not be mistaken for avulsion injuries, although they may be separated by violent hamstring contraction. The fusing ischiopubic synchondroses maybe mistaken for healing fractures, particularly... 

Fig. 11.4a,b. Healing of a metaphyseal fracture without the typical changes of a healing fracture, a Acute metaphyseal fracture. b Follow-up film with no evidence of callus or subperiosteal new hone formation... 

Fig. 11.10. Radiograph of the left shoulder shows a healing fracture of the tip of the acromion (curved arrow), the left proximal humeral metaphysis (arrowhead) and the associated subperiosteal new bone formation (arrows)...

Fig. 19.19. Healing fractures of the index finger metacarpal head and neck...

Furthermore, it was found that the machining cracks were completely healed by crack-healing as shown in figure 5 (a). Figures 5 (a-1) and (a-2) show the SEM images of fracture origin and detail of point A, respectively of the machined specimen healed at 1673 K for 10 h. As shown in these figures, all machined specimen healed fractured from sites other than the... 

Xhis technique, in which small amounts of fluid are trapped by healing fractures in quartz, has been used by Sterner and Bodnar (1984) for studying pVXx properties of aqueous electrolytes (CaCl2, KCl, NaCl) and aqueous CO2 at supercritical temperatures up to 820 ""C (Knight and Bodnar, 1989), and extended by Frost and Wood (1997) up to 1400 °C. 

One cannot assume, however, that these latter experiments necessarily invalidate completely the older clinical observations. The diets on which these men were placed in order to secure union of the fractures and the diets they received subsequently, and until they developed scurvy, were almost certainly very low in vitamin C, and it seems likely that an imperfect union of the bones occurred in the first place. In many cases the refracture took place only a few months after the original fracture, and it is probable that these people had been on an almost scorbutic diet all the time and that the fracture had never healed properly. On the other hand, Walter s (1748) observation of the softening of a 50-year-old healed fracture must be regarded with considerable suspicion. It was almost certainly a new fracture, and it seems hardly likely that the person afflicted could remember the exact site of his injury after such a passage of time. Murray and Kodicek have obtained no evidence that healed fractures undergo refracture in scurvy. 

Because of her age and the history of steroid use, she was sent for a dexascan, which showed osteoporosis of the spine and hip. An x-ray of the thoracic spine showed a healed fracture of T9. 

The Spencer techniques are seven gentle stretch-ing/articulatory maneuvers used to treat/prevent shoulder restriction caused by hypertonic muscles, early adhesive capsulitis, healed fractures and dislocations, and any other traumatic or degenerative condition in which improved motion is required. 

A thorough history, physical examination, and ancillary studies should be performed before treatment is instituted. The ankle joint is commonly involved in eversion and inversion strains or sprains, as well as in malleolar fractures. Dysfunction often follows immobilization treatment procedures. People with healed fractures may still have unresolved somatic dysfunctions. 

Bureau pf Primary Health Care, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (1996). Healing fractured lives How three school-based projects approach violence prevention and mental health care. Washington, DC U.S. Government Printing Office. 

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