Despite your best efforts to protect your child, accidents and injuries can happen and deserve vigilant, considerate, and efficient medical care. At Urgently Ortho, serving Phoenix and surrounding areas in Arizona, the skilled group of health professionals have extensive experience treating pediatric injuries and helping with injury recovery. The Urgently Ortho specialists offer proven-effective testing, services, and treatments. Call or book online.
Children are often active and engage in various physical activities. Sometimes injuries can occur. Injuries can be caused by sports, overexertion, a fall, a skateboard accident, a motor vehicle accident, or other factors.
There are different types of pediatric injury, such as broken bones, growth plate fractures or injuries, or muscle strains or tears. Your child might experience swelling, redness, loss of mobility, and pain in the affected area.
Osgood Schlatter’s and Sever’s disease are two common growth plate (bone) injuries that occur in children. Sever’s disease is the inflammation of the growth plate in the heel of children and Osgood-Schlatter’s disease results in a painful lump under the kneecap.
These injuries can be painful and happen most frequently in quickly developing children or due to repetitive activity.
Children have areas of active developing cartilage tissue from which bone grows (open growth plates) at either end of their long bones. The growth plates determine the future shape and length of the mature bones. If injuries to these growth plates aren’t properly treated, they can lead to complications, such as angular deformities and discrepancies in limb length.
The Urgently Ortho providers check for potential damage to the growth plate that’s sometimes mistaken for sprains. Growth plate injuries require prompt attention and evaluation in case of a possible surgery.
Pediatric injuries should always be treated by qualified medical professionals, such as the Urgently Ortho team.
Developing children’s bones are different from bones of fully grown adults for various reasons. Children’s growing bones are more resilient and likely to buckle or bend. Children usually heal faster than adults due to the thicker layer of connective tissue (periosteum) surrounding their bones.
The open growth plates that regulate future bone growth in children are more susceptible to injury. If this vulnerable part of the bone doesn’t heal properly after a fracture or injury, the bone can grow more slowly than other bones in the body or at an angle.
In some injuries, such as to the ACL, one of the four main ligaments in the knee, children are affected differently and require specialized treatment. With children, a different type of surgery might be necessary. Sometimes the ligament may not be torn at all, and the bone where the ligament is attached is the one that requires repair.
The Urgently Ortho providers educate pediatric patients and their parents on how to prevent injuries and assist injury recovery, so there’s less pain and more activity. Help your child get back in the game and call Urgently Ortho or book online.
