Demographic features and difficulties in rehabilitation in patients referred to hand rehabilitation unit for phalangeal fractures

Obj ectiv e s: We evaluated demographic and occupational features of patients with phalangeal fractures of the hand, eti¬ologies and types of injuries, and the results of rehabilitation. Methods: The study included 91 fingers of 62 patients (54 males, 8 females; mean age 28±13 years; range 4 to 59 years) who were referred to our hand rehabilitation unit for phalangeal fractures. Demographic features, the cause and localization of injury, the type of surgery, time from surgery to rehabilitation, and the follow-up period were determined. At the end of rehabilitation, range of motion (ROM) of the phalangeal joint and total ROM of the injured fingers were assessed using the Strickland-Glogovac rating system. Resu l t s : A great majority of injuries were caused by work accidents, followed by sport injuries and falls occurring in students. Sixty patients (96.8%) were right-handed. The fractures occurred in the dominant hand in 29 patients (46.8%). The majority of patients (n=45) were primary school graduates. The most common mechanism of injury was accidents related to heavy work machinery (n=18). The most commonly injured finger and the phalanx were the third finger (n=25, 27.5%) and the proximal phalanx (n=59, 56.7%), respectively. Only 27 patients (43.6%) had a sufficient follow-up with a mean of 79.7±46.6 days (range 30 to 254 days). Following rehabilitation, the mean ROM and the total ROM were 45.0±22.9° and 63.3±16.1° for the injured joint and the thumb, and 31.3±22.5° and 122±60.3° for the injured joint and the other fingers, respectively. Conclusion: Our data provide important insight into appro-priate treatment and rehabilitation of phalangeal fractures, in particular, shortcomings in the treatment and follow-up.