Elbow Ligament Injury

Elbow Ligament Injury

The elbow joint is a fairly constrained joint, meaning that the bones do a fairly good job of maintaining the normal position and alignment. There are numerous ligaments around the elbow that serve to add additional support to prevent excessive motion, rotation, and angulation. Certain ligaments are more important to specific types of stability (see ulnar collateral ligament injury).

In general, the elbow ligaments when injured will heal without surgery. In fact, persistent elbow instability after an injury is fairly rare. However, elbow stiffness is far more likely to occur. The most significant injury affecting the elbow ligaments occurs in an elbow dislocation. This can occur in certain sports such as wrestling, football, rugby, and gymnastics, but is most common in high energy falls (such as falling from a ladder and using your arm to help "break the fall"). When this occurs, the elbow can sometimes relocate itself almost immediately, but often will require a trained healthcare provider (trainer, ER physician, or Orthopaedic Surgeon) to relocate the joint. This type of injury typically disrupts multiple ligaments. Despite the size of this injury, the bones of the elbow joint allow enough constraint that motion is often begun very quickly after the injury (within days typically) under the guidance of a physical therapist with the goal of preventing stiffness. This inherent stability of the elbow also allows the ligaments often to heal fairly rapidly without intervention.

Occasionally certain ligaments will not heal or remain unstable and then surgery may be indicated. This will depend upon the extent of the injury, the specific ligaments damaged, and the functional requirements of the patient. This will be investigated with detailed physical examination tests by a trained orthopaedic surgeon and by obtaining an MRI. The details of the required treatment will then be discussed.