What types of bone fractures are there?

What types of bone fractures are there?

Healthcare providers can usually categorize a bone fracture based on its features. The categories include:

• Closed or open fractures: If the injury doesn’t break open the skin, it’s called a closed fracture. If the skin does open, it’s called an open fracture or compound fracture.
• Complete fractures: The break goes completely through the bone, separating it in two.
• Displaced fractures: A gap forms where the bone breaks. Often, this injury requires surgery to fix.
• Partial fractures: The break doesn’t go all the way through the bone.
• Stress fractures: The bone gets a crack in it, which is sometimes tough to find with imaging.

A healthcare provider may add extra terms to describe partial, complete, open and closed fractures. These terms include:

• Avulsion: A tendon or ligament pulls part of the bone off. Ligaments connect bones to other bones, while tendons anchor muscles to bones.
• Comminuted: The bone shatters into several different pieces.
• Compression: The bone gets crushed or flattened.
• Impacted: Bones get driven together.
• Oblique: The break goes diagonally across the bone.
• Spiral: The fracture spirals around the bone.
• Transverse: The break goes in a straight line across the bone.