Complete Fracture for Dummies

Complete fracture is a term we use to describe a very specific kind of injury that can happen to our bones. Now, let's imagine that your bone is like a long, hard stick made of tiny pieces called cells. These cells all work together to make your bone strong and sturdy, just like the framework of a building. But sometimes, accidents or falls can cause a lot of force to be applied to our bones, overwhelming their strength and causing them to break. When we talk about a complete fracture, we mean that the break in the bone is all the way through. It's like when you have a bar of chocolate and you break it in half, and you can see that the chocolate is split in two pieces. In the same way, a complete fracture means that the bone is broken into two separate pieces, or sometimes even more. Now, fractures can have different shapes and patterns. Some fractures may have jagged edges, like pieces of a puzzle that don't fit together perfectly. Other fractures can have clean edges, like two perfectly cut slices of bread. But with a complete fracture, the bone is completely separated, just like splitting that bar of chocolate in half. In medicine, we give different names to fractures based on their characteristics. A complete fracture is one of the main types, and it is also sometimes called a simple or closed fracture. The reason we call it "closed" is because the skin covering the broken bone is not damaged or broken. It's like having a presents wrapped in a gift box that is still intact. The bone is inside your body, protected by muscles and skin, just like the gift is hiding and protected inside the box.