Bruised arm

A hand contusion is a type of injury that is classified as mild or moderate. A contusion is damage to the subcutaneous layers of the epidermis and soft tissues, not accompanied by cracks, dislocations, stretches or fractures. However, a hand contusion is often difficult to distinguish from more serious injuries, as their primary symptoms are very similar.

A hand contusion that is classified as mild or moderate is an injury that does not break the skin and is accompanied by moderate pain, swelling, and bruising at the site of impact. The upper limb may ache slightly when moving, but its basic functions are not impaired and do not cause difficulties.

The basic rules of first aid include the following actions:

• Try to provide rest to the injured area;
• Apply a moderately tight bandage made of elastic or any available material;
• Apply cold on top - a cold compress, ice wrapped in a cloth, a cooled object.

A hand bruise is often accompanied by additional, quite serious injuries - sprains, dislocations, fractures. How can you tell them apart?

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Bruised arm with sprain

Sprains, which often accompany bruises, occur mainly when falling. A person who falls tends to instinctively put his hands forward, as if protecting himself from general injury.

And indeed, as a rule, the arms are injured, most often the hands. In such cases, the injury is not limited to one bruise, as a rule, the ligamentous apparatus suffers.

Symptoms typical for a sprained ligament:

• Intense sharp pain;
• Rapidly developing swelling at the site of injury;
• Painful sensations when touching the injured area;
• Hyperemia, hematomas under the skin.

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Bruised arm with torn ligaments

If the joint looks unusual and hurts a lot, then most likely it is at least a sprain, and at most a fracture is possible. If the pain is tolerable and begins to increase the next day after the hand has started to function, then most likely it is a typical sprain. If the tendon is damaged, and this can happen with a severe injury, then the symptoms are very obvious - severe pain, the characteristic sound of a tearing tendon, the inability to move the hand, severe swelling, lymphostasis at the site of injury.

First aid in cases where a hand bruise is accompanied by a sprain consists of the following actions:

• Ensure immobility;
• Apply a tight bandage, wrap in any available way;
• Provide external cold to the site of injury;
• Slightly raise the limb to ensure the outflow of peripheral blood;
• You should not try to adjust the damaged joint or rub the ligament on your own;
• If possible, seek medical attention (get an x-ray).

A little information about bandaging methods that will be useful both in treatment and in providing assistance in case of sprains and ligament ruptures.

The simplest method is the spiral method, when the bandage is applied in the same way as the circular one, but several turns are made on the same place to fix the bandage. Bandaging should be done starting from the narrowest place, the turns should be applied slightly diagonally to ensure density.

If the hand injury is on a joint, bandage should be applied using the “figure eight” method, applying turns as if drawing the number 8 with the bandage.

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Bruised arm with dislocation

Also, a hand bruise can be fraught with dislocation. Most often, the elbow joints, or more precisely the bones of the forearm, are subject to dislocation. Since the elbow joint consists of many structural elements, the following parts can be injured during a bruise:

• The radius bone, its head;
• Both bones of the forearm;
• Ulna (isolated dislocation);
• Bones of the forearm in combination with a crack or fracture of the cervical part of the radius;
• Olecranon process.

Such a hand bruise, due to the anatomical features of the elbow structure, is accompanied by hemarthrosis - bleeding into the joint cavity, deformation of the joint itself, severe swelling. A particularly alarming symptom can be a violation of finger movement, which indicates damage to the nerve endings in the elbow joint. Help for such an injury is similar to the rules for providing help for bruises, but after applying a bandage and ice, you must seek help from a doctor.

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Bruised arm with fracture

The fracture is most often of a closed type, rarely with displacement.

Symptoms of a bruised arm with a fracture:

• Intense, increasing pain immediately after the blow;
• Rapid spread of edema;
• Bruising may occur;
• Sharp pain when bending and unbending.

First aid, if a hand is bruised with a fracture, consists of the following actions:

• Ensure fixation and immobility (apply a splint made of available hard material to the fracture site, previously bandaged with cloth);
• Provide cold at the site of injury - compress, ice, cold object;
• If possible, give the victim a pain reliever.
• Take the victim to a medical facility as soon as possible.

If there are no means at hand that could act as a splint, the arm should be carefully placed against the body and secured with a bandage.

A hand bruise can be a really simple, mild injury that goes away within one or two weeks. The first day is indicative, when both the pain and swelling should gradually subside. If the second and third days are accompanied by constant pain, increasing swelling and immobility of the limb, self-treatment of such an injury is unacceptable - the help of a qualified specialist, a traumatologist, is necessary.

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