Shoulder Fracture

A shoulder fracture is generally caused by a fall, direct blow to the shoulder, contact sport, or a road accident. Your shoulder is a joint bridging your arm to the body. It is constituted of three parts – the
humerus or upper arm bone, the scapula or the shoulder blade, and the clavicle or collarbone. The proximal humerus (the upper end of humerus) has a ball-like shape connecting to the scapula’s socket, glenoid. If any of these parts go through disruption, the functionality of the shoulder gets affected.

In a shoulder fracture, the proximal humerus, shoulder blade, and clavicle go through injury restricting movement.

Symptoms

You must rush to an orthopedician on noticing any of these symptoms after a shoulder injury:

• Bruising and swelling
• Unbearable pain
• Deformity
• Not able to move the shoulder

Diagnosis

When you go to an orthopedic specialist in case of a shoulder fracture, he will advise taking the advanced imaging tests to identify the accurate location of the fracture and its severity. Various imaging tests as per the latest advancements to evaluate shoulder fractures include:

• CT Scan
• X-rays
• MRI
• Musculoskeletal Ultrasound

Treatment

The fracture treatments can be categorized into non-surgical and surgical methods. Non-surgical methods involve immobilization (a plaster to keep the bones in place and allowing them to heal) and medication.   

Surgical methods involve different treatments for different kinds of shoulder fractures, such as clavicle fractures, scapula fractures, and proximal humerus fractures.

Clavicle Fractures: Most often clavicle fractures can be successfully treated with non-surgical methods. However, a severe case of a comminuted fracture needs surgery. The surgery will involve fixing the fracture with screws, rods or plates inside the bone.

Proximal Humerus Fractures: If there’s no sign of bone fragments displacement, your proximal humerus fracture can be successfully treated without surgery. You will require to undergo a surgery in case the bone fragments are shifted from their original position. The surgery involves fracture fixation using plates, pins, or screws. In the case of multiple fracture fragments, the suggested treatment is shoulder replacement.

Scapula Fractures: Same as humerus and clavicle, scapula fractures can also be treated non-surgically with a period of immobilizations with a shoulder immobilizer or sling, pain medications and icing.

However, in severe cases (that is predicted to be around 20%), you may need to undergo surgery – when the fracture is associated with clavicle or proximal fractures. The surgery includes fixing the fractures with screws and plates.