medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

the Holdsworth fracture is an unstable

fracture Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displa ...

dislocation In materials science, a dislocation or Taylor's dislocation is a linear crystallographic defect or irregularity within a crystal structure that contains an abrupt change in the arrangement of atoms. The movement of dislocations allow atoms to sl ...

of the thoraco lumbar junction of the spine. The injury comprises a fracture through a

vertebra The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates,Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic ...

l body, rupture of the posterior spinal ligaments and fractures of the

facet joints Facets () are flat faces on geometric shapes. The organization of naturally occurring facets was key to early developments in crystallography, since they reflect the underlying symmetry of the crystal structure. Gemstones commonly have facets cut ...

. The injury was described by

Frank Wild Holdsworth Sir Frank Wild Holdsworth (22 September 1904 – 11 December 1969) was an English orthopaedic surgeon remembered for pioneering work on rehabilitation of spinal injury patients. He described the Holdsworth fracture of the spine in 1963. Bi ...

in 1963. He described the mechanism of this injury as a

flexion Motion, the process of movement, is described using specific anatomical terms. Motion includes movement of organs, joints, limbs, and specific sections of the body. The terminology used describes this motion according to its direction relative ...

-rotation injury, and said that the unstable fracture dislocation should be treated by

fusion Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole. Fusion may also refer to: Science and technology Physics *Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nucl ...

of the two affected vertebrae.

References

Bone fractures {{injury-stub

See also

References