Hand surgery & rehabilitation
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Patients with cerebral palsy and spastic hemiplegia may have extremely poor upper extremity function. Unfortunately, many current therapies and treatments for patients with spastic hemiplegia offer very limited improvements. One innovative technique for treating these patients is the use a contralateral C7 nerve root transfer to neurotize the C7 nerve root in the affected limb. ⋯ In a cadaver, both sides of the C7 root were dissected. The right recipient C7 root was resected as proximally as possible, while the left donor C7 root was resected as distally as possible. With the use of the da Vinci (®) SI surgical robot (Intuitive Surgical ™, Sunnyvale, CA, USA), we were able to eliminate the large incision and use a much shorter nerve graft when performing contralateral C7 nerve transfer.
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Observational Study
Use of the entire flexor carpi radialis tendon for basal thumb ligament reconstruction interposition arthroplasty.
Recent studies seem to show that ligament reconstruction with tendon interposition (LRTI) does not provide any benefit over trapezium excision alone; however dorsal subluxation was not measured in these studies. We believe it is logical to perform ligamentoplasty in order to obtain long-term stability and therefore treat dorsal subluxation. Our aim is to verify this hypothesis in an observational prospective study of LRTI using the entire flexor carpi radialis (FCR) tendon. Patients who had failed to respond to nonoperative treatment for advanced thumb basal joint arthritis were recruited prospectively between 2007 and 2011. They all received the same surgical treatment, which consisted of LRTI using the entire FCR tendon. Pre- and postoperative pain, range of motion, strength, stability of the base of the first metacarpal and DASH scores were evaluated. Forty-three patients (49 thumbs) were included with a mean follow-up of 37months (range: 29-72months). Patients showed significant improvements in pain, range of motion and pinch strength. The dorsoradial subluxation was no longer present in any of the thumbs, and the grind test was positive in only three thumbs. The DASH score was improved from 49/100 preoperatively to 22/100 postoperatively. No ulnar deviation of the wrist was observed at the longest follow-up and grip strength was not altered by the procedure. This study showed that the use of the full FCR tendon for LRTI in combination with trapeziectomy is an efficient and safe treatment for advanced carpometacarpal osteoarthritis as it provides a strong ligamentoplasty with a bulky interposition. ⋯ Clinical study, Therapeutic Study: Level IV.
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The aim of this study was to describe the mechanisms involved in stretch injuries of the brachial plexus. One hundred and fifty consecutive patients with supraclavicular brachial plexus injuries (BPI) were asked about the mechanism of injury during the actual injury event, particularly about the type of trauma to their shoulder, shoulder girdle and head. Fifty-seven of the patients provided enough information about their accident to allow for analysis of the shoulder trauma. ⋯ The injury mechanism for the lower root palsy cases (n=11) was variable. The most frequent mechanism was forceful anterior shoulder compression by a car seat belt. We found that injury mechanisms differed significantly from the ones commonly discussed in published studies.