00:00He's been limited in practice, and he plans to wear a protective brace to play in game one.
00:05How does something like this happen? And two, why did he need surgery for it?
00:11The metacarpal is the big knuckle that helps connect the finger to the rest of the hand.
00:16So when we're talking about a fractured metacarpal, we're talking about that big bump and the
00:20connection between that bump and the lower part of the hand in here. In terms of how you break it,
00:26it's a little bit of a mystery for him because, as Coach Brown said, it wasn't in a game or
00:31in
00:31practice. Typically, that injury is referred to colloquially as something called a boxer's fracture
00:36because you get that injury from striking something and hitting this area. Is that what happened? I
00:42don't know. That's usually, in general, the most common way for that to happen. As far as the
00:47surgery goes, that's probably about getting him to play faster. So most times that injury can
00:53actually be treated without surgery, just with a splint, just with a mobilization. But for him,
00:59I mean, we have the finals coming up game one. During the season, maybe they would have let that
01:03go and heal on its own. But I think they're going to do everything they can to get him back
01:07as quickly
01:07as possible. If you have a patient coming to your office that's not playing in the NBA finals on
01:12Wednesday, how would you treat them for a fracture on his or her fifth metacarpal? For most people,
01:18this bone has a huge tolerance for positioning. So outside of certain ranges where the bone should
01:25be straight, we use certain numbers, but something as high as like 60 degrees bent can be treated
01:31successfully without surgery. You might just have a funny looking knuckle. So most people can be
01:35treated without it. If you're a high level athlete, the way Mitch is, and you come into our office,
01:40then you're going to get surgery too.
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