First aid for rib fractures. How to distinguish a bruise from a fracture

This article will focus on first aid for rib fractures, classification of injuries, symptoms and treatment. In addition, we will focus on the differences between a bruise and a fracture, so that an inexperienced person in medicine can easily distinguish these injuries from each other and provide the first necessary assistance to the victim.

Now we will give some statistical information. To begin with, rib fractures occur as a result of physical action on the human chest. If you believe statistics, about 70 percent of people turn to medical institutions with injuries to the ribs. In addition, a fracture is revealed in 16 percent.

Often, such injuries are affected by 4, 5, 6 and 7 ribs. This is easily explained by the fact that the lower ones have protection in the form of a muscular corset. In addition, the listed ribs do not have such flexibility as the others.

Classification

Now we turn to the problem of classification of injury to the ribs. It is important to note that here it is possible to present the classification according to various criteria. You will learn more about it from the table below.

How to distinguish a bruise from a fracture

In this section, we will teach you to distinguish the bruise of the ribs from their fracture. In life, things can happen differently: they stumbled, fell, boys in school often fight, not thinking about the consequences and so on. How to distinguish the injuries of the ribs? It is important to note that there are several significant differences between the rib bruise and its fracture. We can include the following:

• Fracture is characterized by acute pain, this can be explained by bone tissue damage (it is important to note that the pain syndrome increases with an attempt to move or cough);
• If the rib breaks, then there is a bruise, you can feel the friction of the bones against each other;
• An open fracture is very easy to distinguish from a bruise, since bone damages the skin of a person;
• If this is not a fracture, but a bruise, then only a soft tissue is damaged, while you can feel aching pain, notice a small bruise and swelling (special attention should be paid to deformation of the chest, with an injury such it will not be found).

The victim must necessarily seek help from any nearby medical institution, even if he correctly diagnoses the condition.

Symptoms

This section of the article will be devoted to the signs of fracture of the ribs. How correctly to independently diagnose the status? The symptoms will help. To begin with, let us single out the signs of a fracture without damaging the skin (i.e., closed) and internal organs:

• Dull severe pain (it is worse when trying to move, coughing, deep breath);
• Posture (with a broken ribs, a person tries to adopt a pose that will reduce the movement of the chest, such as tilting toward a broken rib or girth by the chest);
• Superficial breathing (again, this is due to the fact that during deep inspiration, the chest moves, resulting in increased pain; to minimize it, a person tries to breathe superficially);
• Hematoma (a large hematoma forms above the damaged rib);
• Another sign of fracture of the rib is the deformation of the chest (this sign is clearly expressed in thin people, especially with multiple fractures).

Now we will consider the signs of an open fracture or with damage to the internal organs:

• Damaged skin (bone is outside);
• rapid pulse;
• pale skin;
• If the lung is damaged, there is difficulty breathing, bleeding from the respiratory tract;
• Damage to the aorta leads to the death of the victim at the scene, as there is a profuse hemorrhage (such cases are extremely rare);
• Heart damage in 70 percent of cases leads to death in the first minutes, hours and days; Even if a person survived the injury, then his life will be hampered by a number of diseases, such as chronic coronary insufficiency, dystrophic cardiosclerosis;
• Liver damage leads to death, as a rule, in these cases a person dies two hours after the injury.

Stages of healing

The healing of a fracture or a crack in the rib is a lengthy process that requires close monitoring by a specialist. There are three stages of healing. They are presented in the table below.

First aid for rib fractures

If a person injures an edge before your very eyes, you should urgently call an ambulance while you wait for it, try to make the most of the patient's benefit:

1. First, make sure that you are dealing with a fracture (how to do this was described above).
2. Give the patient an anesthetic drug.
3. Using improvised means (bandages, towels, cloth), apply a tight bandage to the patient on the chest. In order to make it less uncomfortable, the bandage should be put on exhalation.
4. Then you need to apply something cold to the place of injury.
5. When providing first aid for fractures of the ribs, it is necessary to give the affected person a semi-sitting position. Pay attention to the fact that the items should be performed in the exact sequence. The back of the patient must have a rigid support.

This is all that you can do for the patient at a given time.

Diagnostics

To diagnose a fracture in a medical institution, a number of procedures are carried out:

• interview;
• inspection.

Next, you need to find out the degree of damage, you need to do this:

• X-ray (where you can take a picture, you will tell the doctor, usually in the same institution);
• CT;
• Ultrasound examination of the chest.

Treatment

Treatment is carried out with a gypsum or elastic bandage, which fixes the position of the patient, and pain medications. For minor injuries, non-narcotic analgesics are used, in more severe cases, narcotic drugs.

Features of bed rest

How to sleep with broken ribs? This issue worries many patients. It all depends on where the fracture occurred. If the ribs of the front wall are damaged, then you need to sleep on your back, always on a hard surface. If the back is damaged, sleep and lie on the opposite side.

First aid for rib fractures is necessary for the victim while waiting for an ambulance. It is important to be able to do it competently. How to do this, you learned from this article.