Follow-up treatment concepts for elbow injuries

Abstract

So far there are no clear recommendations for postoperative follow-up treatment of elbow injuries and individual concepts are often chosen. Due to the susceptibility for posttraumatic or postoperative impaired movement up to stiffness of the elbow joint, early mobilization plays acrucial role. Therefore, mid-term to long-term immobilization should be avoided. In addition to the necessary cryotherapy and compression therapy for swelling and pain control in the initial period, early actively assisted mobilization now has an important role. Additionally, active flexion and extension in an overhead position, so-called overhead motion, was recently established. After ashort initial immobilization in acast, mostly 3-5days, the cast is changed to adynamic movement orthosis, which when possible enables afree range of motion. Care is taken that varus and valgus loading is avoided. In general loading is avoided for the first 6weeks, followed by astepwise increase of loading up to maximum loading. In most cases return to sport is possible after 3months. After implantation of an elbow prosthesis amaximum loading of 5 kg for single loading and 1 kg for repetitive loading are recommended.