Hand surgery
About Hand surgery
Hand surgery is a separate subset of surgery dealing with the bones tendons and soft tissue of the hand. Physiotherapy is an important part of hand surgery.
Impaired hand due to accident, trauma or previous surgery can be recovered by hand surgery. The surgery treats a condition that causes pain and impairs and affects the strength, function, and flexibility of the wrist and fingers. Surgery helps to restore the normal functioning of hands and fingers by rectifying all the abnormalities.
Polydactyly
Hrithik Roshan with his extra thumb on his right hand is commonly seen in movies. It is a readily correctable condition with a surgery involving strengthening of the remaining thumb and excision of the extra digit.
Soft Tissue Injuries
Injuries of the hand need to be evaluated carefully. Though, the injury may seem to be minor improperly treated nailbed and hand injuries can cause significant distress to the patient.
Hand fractures
Hand Fractures are common injuries. These can be treated in different ways like splinting, k-wiring, screws, miniplates, wires, external fixators etc. The kind of fixation depends on the location and type of fractures.
Tendon injuries
Tendon injuries are common place when the hand is injured by a sharp object. Though the external injury may seem innocous, the damage caused may be severe. These kinds of injuries need careful surgery, prolonged immobilization and physiotherapy for good results.
Nerve grafting
Nerve injuries are best treated at the time injury itself however if the treatment is delayed then nerve grafting is most likely to be needed. Nerve injuries treated by nerve grafting are usually have a protracted recovery. The nerve for grafting is usually harvested from the leg.
Tendon grafting
Whenever there is a loss of tendon or a long delay in treating a tendon injury a tendon graft is necessary. These involve replacing the tendon gap by surgery and a prolonged course of splintage and physiohterapy.
Thumb and finger reconstructions
Loss of a thumb or a digit can be quite a devastating injury reconstructions of the thumb and fingers are possible through toe transfers, osteoplastic reconstructions, transfer of the neighbouring digits to the thumb, distraction of the existing one etc to give and a good reconstruction.
Post Burn Deformities
Hand burns are common. Deep burns of the hand cause scarring and can restrict the function of the hand. Timely surgery can alleviate such problems. Like all other hand surgeries compression splintage and physiotherapy form an integral part of treatment of these conditions.