Broken bones

Have you ever broken a bone?

Yes, but not saying which ones. It took them a while to heal. All were caused by various types of fall.

Broken bones in young people can cause greenstick fractures, that’s when the bone is broken like a soft twig and can be reset. Simple clean breaks are manipulated back into place then held in place with plaster of paris bandages. Some breaks, like a broken finger can’t be plastered but are just strapped up. Broken ribs cannot be plastered so it’s just painkillers and sometimes strapping? The worst break can be a compound fracture where the bone penetrates the skin. This will require some form of surgery with pins or even plates to hold the bones back in place. Then there are skull fractures that require operations to fix bones back in place. Sometimes pe have plates put in their head if the bone of the skull becomes necrotic. XRays and other types of imaging can be used to locate and realign bony damage.

Bones named

Someone on twitter asked ‘what do you know for certain?’ so I had a think about it and came up with something I remember from my human biology class.

The names of the bones of the hand, scaphoid, lunate, triquetral, pisiform, trapezium, trapezius, capitate, hamate. The mnemonic to remember it is : Spanish ladies take pills that they can hop. I guess it worked because I still remember them!