First aid for rib fractures. How to distinguish a bruise from a fracture

This article will focus on first aid for rib fractures, classification of injuries, symptoms and treatment. In addition, we will focus on the differences between a bruise and fracture, so that an inexperienced person in medicine can easily distinguish these injuries from each other and provide the first necessary assistance to the victim.

Now give some statistical information. To begin with, rib fractures occur as a result of physical impact on the human chest. If you believe statistics, about 70 percent of people turn to medical institutions with injuries to the ribs. In addition, a fracture is revealed in 16 percent.

4, 5, 6 and 7 ribs are often affected by such injuries. This is easily explained by the fact that the lower ones have protection in the form of a muscular corset. In addition, the listed ribs do not have such flexibility as the others.

Classification

Now we turn to the issue of classification of injuries to the ribs. It is important to note that here it is possible to present the classification according to various criteria. You will learn more about it from the table below.

Characteristics of	Types of	Explanation of
Presence of a skin lesion	In this case, open and closed fractures of	are distinguished. The fragments disrupt the integrity of the skin when an open fracture occurs. With closed fracture, bone fragments do not damage the skin and are located in the thickness of soft tissues.
Degree of bone damage	There are: complete fracture, subperiosteal and fracture in the	rib. With complete fracture, bone is damaged throughout the thickness, bone tissue is damaged in case of subperiosteal,- fracture absent, only bone tissue is damaged
Number of	faults Isolate single and multiple	With a single fracture, only one edge is damaged, Multiple
Locations	Single-sided and bilateral	Single-sided fracture - edge damage only on one side, bilateral - with both
Location of bone fragments	Without bias and with displacement	It is important to clarify the following: for the final fracture( that is, if oneribs in two places) fragments are formed. They can stay in their original place( fracture without displacement) or move( fracture with displacement)

How to distinguish a bruise from a fracture

In this section we will teach you to distinguish the bruise of the ribs from their fracture. In life, things can happen differently: they stumbled, fell, boys in school often fight, not thinking about the consequences and so on. How to distinguish the injuries of the ribs? It is important to note that there are several significant differences between the rib bruise and its fracture. To these we can refer the following:

• fracture is characterized by acute pain, it can be explained by bone tissue damage( it is important to note that the pain syndrome increases when trying to move or cough);
• if the rib breaks, then there is a bruise, you can feel the friction of the bones against each other;
• an open fracture is very easy to distinguish from a bruise, since bone damages the skin of a person;
• if this is not a fracture, but just a bruise, then only soft tissue is damaged, while you can feel aching pain, notice a small bruise and swelling( special attention should be paid to deformation of the chest, with an injury such it will not be found).

The victim must always seek help from any nearby medical institution, even if he correctly diagnoses the condition.

Symptoms of

This section of the article will be devoted to the signs of fracture of the ribs. How correctly to independently diagnose the status? Symptoms will help in this. To begin with, we distinguish the signs of a fracture without damaging the skin( i.e., closed) and internal organs:

• dull severe pain( it is worse when trying to move, cough, deep breath);
• pose( with a broken ribs, a person tries to adopt a pose that will reduce the movement of the chest, such as: tilt in the direction of a broken rib or girth of the chest);
• superficial breathing( again, this is due to the movement of the chest in the deep inspiration, which results in increased pain; to minimize it, the person tries to breathe superficially);
• hematoma( a large hematoma forms above the damaged rib);
• is another sign of a rib fracture - it is a deformity of the chest( this sign is clearly expressed in thin people, especially with multiple fractures).

Now we will look at the signs of an open fracture or with damage to internal organs:

• damaged skin( bone is outside);
• rapid pulse;
• pale skin;
• , with lung damage, there is difficulty breathing, bleeding from the respiratory tract;
• damage to the aorta leads to the death of the victim at the scene, as there is an abundant hemorrhage( such cases are extremely rare);
• heart damage in 70 percent of cases leads to death in the first minutes, hours and days;even if a person survived the injury, then his life will be hampered by a number of diseases, such as chronic coronary insufficiency, dystrophic cardiosclerosis;
• liver damage leads to death, as a rule, in these cases a person dies two hours after the injury.

The healing stages of

The healing of fractures or cracks in the rib is a long process that requires close monitoring by a specialist. There are three stages of healing. They are presented in the table below.

Stage	Explanation
First	This stage is also called the connecting corn. What is the reason for this? In the place of fracture, blood and cells accumulate, which produce connective tissue. Such cells are called fibroblasts, they create the same connective callus
. The second	At this stage, the osteoid is formed from the connective callus. This is due to the deposition of inorganic substances and mineral salts in the connective callus
Third	Growth and hardening of the bone. To increase the strength of the osteoid callus, hydroxyapatites are deposited. It is worth noting that the hardening does not happen instantly. Corn for a while remains loose and in diameter it is larger than the edge itself

First aid for fractures of the

rib. If a person has damaged the rib on your eyes, you should urgently call an ambulance while you wait for it, try to make the most useful for the patient:

1. Forstart to make sure that you are dealing with a fracture( how to do this was described above).
2. Give the patient an anesthetic.
3. Using improvised means( bandages, towels, cloth), apply a tight bandage to the patient on the chest. In order to make it less discomfort, the bandage should be put on exhalation.
4. Next, you need to attach something cold to the place of injury.
5. In the case of first aid for rib fractures, the affected person should be given a semi-sitting position. Pay attention to the fact that the items should be performed in the exact sequence. The back of the patient must have a rigid support.

This is all you can do for a patient at a given time.

Diagnostics

To diagnose a fracture in a medical institution, a number of procedures are performed:

• survey;
• inspection.

Next, you need to find out the extent of the damage, you need to do this:

• X-ray( where you can take a picture, you will tell the doctor, usually in the same institution);
• CT;
• ultrasound examination of the thorax.

Treatment of

Treatment is performed using a gypsum or elastic bandage, which fixes the position of the patient, and pain medications. For minor injuries, non-narcotic analgesics are used, in more severe cases, narcotic drugs.

Features of bed rest

How to sleep with broken ribs? This issue worries many patients. It all depends on where the fracture occurred. If the ribs of the front wall are damaged, then sleep on the back, always on a hard surface. If the back is damaged, sleep and lie on the opposite side.

First aid for rib fractures is necessary for the victim while waiting for an ambulance. It is important to be able to do it competently. How to do this, you learned from this article.