A Gymnast's Broken Wrist and Six Weeks in a Cast

Back on the Bars

1Anika Sorensen is a sixth grader who trains with a club gymnastics team. In March she slipped from the uneven bars and landed on her outstretched left hand. An X-ray showed a break in one of the two forearm bones, just above the wrist. A doctor lined up the bone and wrapped Anika's forearm and wrist in a hard cast for six weeks. Her school's athletic trainer, Mr. Callum Whitaker, helped her track her recovery as a science project.

2That first night, the area around the break swelled inside the cast. Anika's left fingers looked pale, felt cold and tingled. Mr. Whitaker had told her what to check. He pressed on a fingernail until it turned white, let go and timed how long the pink color took to come back. He did the same on her right hand. Then the doctor split the cast along one side to loosen it, and Mr. Whitaker checked again an hour later.

3A bone is a living organ. It is made mostly of bone tissue, with living bone cells, and it also has blood vessels and nerves running through it. To repair the break, bone cells build new bone tissue. They use oxygen and building materials, such as calcium and protein, that come from digested food and travel to them in the blood.

4When the cast came off, Anika's left forearm looked thinner, and her hand felt weak and stiff. At first she had to think hard about each finger movement. She started physical therapy three times a week, squeezing putty and lifting light weights. Every two weeks, Mr. Whitaker measured her grip strength with a hand gripper that reads in kilograms, and he measured around the thickest part of each forearm with a tape measure. Anika is right-handed, so her right grip was a little stronger even before the injury.