View clinical trials related to Radial Head Subluxation.
Filter by:This study is designed as a randomized controlled study. The investigators aim to compare the success of supination-flexion and hyperpronation maneuvers in the treatment of preschool children presenting to the emergency department with radial head subluxation. All children aged 0-6 years, who are diagnosed with radial head subluxation secondary to traction of the forearm, had no evidence of direct trauma to the arm or fracture in the arm (no deformity, swelling, ecchymosis), had no history of musculoskeletal disease, and are approved to participate in the study by their legal guardians, will be included in the study. Patients who are considered to have radial head subluxation initially but had an X-ray performed by the physician and had a fracture in the arm will be excluded from the study. In the study, patients will be randomized and assigned to two treatment groups: the supination-flexion group and the hyperpronation group. In the supination-flexion group, the forearm will be supinated first, followed by full flexion of the elbow joint. In the hyperpronation group, the forearm will be pronated with the child's palm facing down. In both groups, maneuvers will be performed by 3 emergency medicine specialists with at least 2 years of experience. First-attempt failure is determined as the primary outcome of the study. Failure in the second attempt, ultimate failure, recurrence, patient satisfaction during the procedure, pain intensity (assessed by the Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability - FLACC pain scale), and treatment-related adverse events are determined as secondary outcomes of the study. The investigators calculated the sample size and decided to include 117 patients in each group.
Radial head subluxation, also known as pulled elbow or nursemaid's elbow, is one of the most common upper extremity injuries in young children and a common reason for an emergency department visit.1 The injury typically occurs when a forceful longitudinal traction is applied to an extended and pronated forearm.2 Children with radial head subluxation are usually easily recognized by their clinical presentation and rapidly treated by a simple reduction technique involving either hyperpronation or supination and flexion of the injured arm.3-7 Despite the relative ease of diagnosis and treatment, children with radial head subluxation often wait several hours in a pediatric emergency department for a reduction that takes only a few minutes.8 Such visits have direct health care costs and involve time and stress for the child and their family. While many factors are associated with parental and patient satisfaction in the emergency department, it appears that that early treatment or intervention and shorter waiting times correlate with patient and parent satisfaction.9,10 As well, patient satisfaction appears to be the same or better when emergency department care for minor injuries is provided by nurse practitioners compared to physicians.11-13 Increasingly nurse initiated treatments and the use of medical directives and clinical pathways are becoming a focus in providing health care.14-17 While radial head subluxation treatment is an appropriate area to consider management by emergency department nurses, no studies have examined their role in the management of this common injury. Our study's objective was to examine whether triage nurses, trained in the use of a medical directive that taught recognition and treatment of radial head subluxation, could successfully reduce radial head subluxation at a rate similar to physicians. Given the practical constraints at the time of emergency department triage, this study was designed as a cluster randomized trial where the unit of randomization was a day and the patients on any given day were assigned to the nurse or physician arm for the entire day.