6 Tips for Speeding up Bone Fracture Healing

Alexandra Preston – Whether you are a grade school student or a highly-paid professional athlete, a bone fracture can be a tremendous inconvenience that may involve weeks or months of healing and muscular re-training, especially if the fracture is treated with nothing more than a cast. Is there a better way? Here are the latest techniques that could speed up bone fracture healing and reduce the stress from injury.

Treating Fractures with Ultrasound and Electromagnetic Field Therapy

bone1. and 2. Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) and pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (PEMF) are two options used by a number of athletes for promoting repair. A review of 8 studies has noted that both of these treatments can be effective in speeding tibial fracture healing.

One of the papers reviewed found a reduction in healing time of 12 days among non-smokers treated with LIPUS (84 days versus 96 days) for clinical healing, and a reduction of 33 days for healing with PEMF (96 days instead of 129). Even in smokers using these therapies healing time is reduced, 103 days versus 175 in the control group using LIPUS and 96 days versus 175 in the control group using PEMF. Continue reading