How Nerve Injuries in Children Are Assessed and Managed
Nerve injuries in children raise a problem adult medicine doesn’t have to deal with in the same way, the standard tools used to assess nerve function depend on a patient who can describe what they feel, cooperate with instructions and sit still for the test. A three-year-old, or a newborn with a birth-related nerve injury, […]
How the Decision Between Limb Salvage and Amputation Is Judged
When a limb is severely injured, in a road traffic collision, a workplace crush injury, or a case where the blood supply is suddenly cut off, the question of limb salvage vs amputation is rarely settled by a single test result. It’s a judgement call, built from several pieces of clinical evidence weighed together, and […]
Open Fractures and Negligence in Orthopaedic Trauma
An open fracture, where broken bone breaches the skin, is a different injury to a closed break in almost every respect that matters medicolegally. The wound is a direct route for infection, the surrounding soft tissue is often as badly damaged as the bone itself, and how quickly and correctly it’s treated in the first […]
The Medicolegal Aspects of Nerve, Muscle and Tendon Injury
Nerve, muscle and tendon injuries are often assessed and litigated together because a single wound, fracture or surgical complication frequently damages more than one of these structures at once. Untangling which structure is responsible for which functional loss, weakness, numbness, or loss of movement, is central to both the medical assessment and the claim that […]
The Medicolegal Challenges of Nerve Injuries in the Upper Limb
A nerve injury in the arm, wrist or hand rarely behaves the way a fracture does. Two patients with what looks like the same injury on the day it happens can end up in very different places, one back to normal within weeks, the other left with permanent weakness or numbness, and the difference is […]
Outcomes Following Upper Limb Injuries and Their Medicolegal Implications
Outcomes following upper limb injuries vary enormously, and that variation is exactly what a medicolegal report has to explain. Two people with the same fracture can end up with very different function, and the difference usually comes down to nerve involvement, complications, treatment timing and individual healing, not just the initial injury. Prof. Sandip Hindocha, […]