Child-oriented treatment of fractures

For child-oriented treatment of fractures it is important to consider healing processes specific to children. These healing processes necessitate early treatment and a primary definitive treatment concept in line with current standards. The parents or guardians of the child should be directly included while obtaining the anamnesis, for the diagnosis and when planning the treatment concept. Specifically, the potential of spontaneous correction of the growing bone and the necessity or avoidance of imaging procedures should be thoroughly discussed. For the treatment of shaft fractures of the long bones the method of elastic stable intramedullary nailing has found common acceptance as this method significantly reduces both the duration of inpatient treatment as well as the time of immobilization. The child-oriented treatment of fractures is still in development and demands specific knowledge of the orthopedic surgeon concerning the characteristics of the growing bones, the potential of spontaneous correction and the outcome of injuries to the growth plate on the growing skeleton.