230 joints create the poetry in motion that is the moving human body. Our joints are marvels of Bioengineering allowing us to move with an utter sense of effortlessness. But when a person damages one of their joints, especially their shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee or ankle, the functional impact is profound.

Joint injuries can seem deceptively. After a fracture a person’s pain level may be quite manageable, but a properly advanced claim requires a considerable amount of concern for the future. Fractures that penetrate the articular surfaces of a joint predispose a person to osteoarthritis. With this type of arthritis, essentially, the disrupted joint surface increases friction, which wears away the cartilage, which then allows the bones to grind against each other causing pain.

Tim Boland and Darcy Romaine recovered $1.87M for a nurse who suffered a devastating knee injury.

The jury must think of you in your 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60s, 70’s 80’s and 90’s. They must consider the activities you will have to forego to preserve your injured joint. They will have to consider the number of surgeries you may undergo in your lifetime, and the outcomes of those surgeries.

For Example, in Thornhill v. Shadid [2008] O.J. No. 372, Tim Boland and Darcy Romaine recovered $1.87M for a nurse who suffered a devastating knee injury. We recovered $480,500 to provide her with future care. We also recovered $225,000 in recognition of her pain and suffering, which is the highest award for a knee injury in Ontario.

If you are feeling pain after a sudden movement, accident, or fall, have yourself checked by an orthopedic specialist as you may have sustained an injury affecting your bones, joints, muscles or ligaments. Orthopedic doctors advise against self-treating an orthopedic injury or waiting it out as it could lead to permanent injury.
The main categories of serious Orthopedic joint injury include:

Joints consist of two or more bones that are held together by various ligaments and other soft tissues. Healthy joints are usually stable unless external forces come to bear on them making the bones in a joint separate. The symptoms of joint dislocation may include visible deformity, intense pain, and an inability to move the joint.

Soft tissues including muscles, tendons, and cartilage usually provide stability to different joints. For example, a torn rotator cuff is one of the most common traumatic soft tissue injuries affecting the shoulder joint. It may be partial or full tear, and it can severely limit the range of motion of the arm.

An Orthopedic trauma surgeon will be on call to manage any trauma related to the bones, joints, or soft tissues. Orthopedic surgeons will only consider surgical treatments when necessary. Non-surgical treatments such as physical therapy, rest, massage, and supportive braces or casts, may also be effective for certain traumatic injuries.

Depending on the severity of the fracture, some fractures and dislocations, particularly related to the clavicle, scapula, humerus, wrist, hand, and foot, can be treated nonoperatively through an external fixation method. This method involves the use of splints, casts, or braces on the outside of the injury to stabilize the fracture.

An internal fixation method is a surgery where pins, wires, screws, and plates, are placed on the bone to stabilize it. In cases of severe injuries, it might be required to perform more complex surgical procedures such as inserting a lengthy nail down the shaft of a bone, bone grafting, or complex reconstruction.

At times, the plates and screws become an independent source of pain. For example, plates inserted to stabilize an ankle fracture may be pressed upon by boots or skates. After the bone heals and the structural benefit provided by the plate is at an end, it often may be removed. In lawsuits there may be competing opinions between the experts whether a source of pain is caused by the plate and screws or the original injury. Accordingly, when appropriate, it is helpful to have the plate removed to hopefully diminish pain and discomfort, and to resolve the dispute.

A successful lawsuit for orthopaedic injuries does not require that the injury be evident on x-ray imaging, it simply transfers more of the burden of proof onto the believability of the injured person. Having images of a fracture, however, is very helpful evidence. Lawsuits are typically decided by juries, and the ability to show the jury an injury makes it much easier for the jury to connect the event with the injury and at times the severity of the outcome. Consider the situation where a person has a prior knee injury then hurts his/her knee in a fall. If the injury is visible, it is easier to believe that the injury was caused by the fall, than relying on the injured person’s account of how his function has diminished since the fall.

X-rays are a quick and efficient means of identifying fractures, but there are many areas where a fracture may occur and not be seen on x-ray for several weeks following an injury or ever. Fractures that are not seen on x-ray are called “occult fractures” and they are diagnosed based on symptoms and an understanding of how the injury occurred.

Newer imaging techniques are often able to reveal these occult fractures, including tomography, computerized tomography (CT scans), bone scans, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Orthopedic trauma can affect anyone and can sometimes become more common with getting older. Age alone can be a risk factor for Orthopedic injuries, as can a condition called osteoporosis, in which the bones become more porous, less dense and more brittle over time.
Under Ontario law, a defendant cannot point to a pre-existing vulnerability as a defence. If the injured person happens to be more vulnerable to an injury than someone else, it is no answer for the defendant to say that the injured person should have had denser bones or stronger tendons. The person or company responsible for the injury is responsible for the full extent of the injuries caused.

Traumatic Orthopedic injuries are hardly a good experience. Apart from the initial pain and shock, there is a long way of recovery and adjustment. During this time, an individual might be compromised with regard to lifestyle and engagement with society in a normal way.

Recovering from a physical injury isn’t easy. It often takes longer or doesn’t occur if mental health is poorly affected. Psychological sequelae are common after traumatic Orthopedic injuries and include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. Depression is common after any injury and might adversely affect the clinical outcomes.
A patient’s mental health can be affected for various reasons after an injury. But the impact of the injury on a patient’s daily life can cause the main bulk of these problems. Reduced mobility can make it hard for them to leave the house and socialize with friends and family. Patients might get worried about the short-term or long-term financial situation if they are unable to get back to work soon after the injury.

Pain is one of the main symptoms of Orthopedic injuries that causes the patient to seek medical attention after the initial injury. Swelling, reduced mobility or deformity of the affected joint are common causes of pain. The possible implications of not receiving appropriate and timely treatment after sustaining an injury are malunion, avascular necrosis, fat embolism syndrome and prolonged immobility.

Upper extremity injuries often affect activities such as personal hygiene, eating and writing, especially if the dominant limb is fractured. Lower limb injuries often result in an inability to carry out activities of daily living and usually affect employment.

Over the long-term, we are concerned with the onset of osteoarthritis, which is a wearing down of the cartilage in an injured joint. When a fracture occurs within a joint, it becomes likely that at some point the joint will require replacement, with all its associated costs of further rehabilitation.