For Some, Winter Pain Won’t Go Away For a While

On Super Bowl Sunday my son, Matt, went snowboarding at Boston Mills. An especially violent wipeout on a ramp that was way out of his league sent him to the emergency room at Akron Children’s Hospital, where an X-ray revealed a compression fracture in his lower back. Luckily, he is expected to make a complete recovery after a couple of months in a brace and physical therapy. He was wearing a helmet, or the result could have been much worse. He’s a lucky kid. He’ll be out of the brace in time to earn his driver’s license. 

Dr. Michelle Blanda, chair of the Summa Health System Department of Emergency Medicine and Trauma Services, said, “With skiing and snowboarding injuries, we do see that in the younger population. The biggest thing with that is you gotta wear a helmet because the head injuries that can occur with skiing and snowboarding are probably the most devastating.

“We want people to exercise, we want them to be strong; strong muscles will prevent (injuries),” Blanda said. “Injury prevention is the biggest thing that we can try to stress to patients. Keep your muscles strong, be active and at the same time, wear your seat belt, wear your helmet.”

The snow and ice are responsible for a lot of injuries each winter, though most of them happen closer to home, often from people trying to break their falls.

“Usually in the winter, when you have ice storms, you’ll see the broken wrist; I think that’s the most common fracture,” Blanda said. “Hip fractures are another one you see with falls, which, as you know, can be just devastating for a person.”

After the fall

Mike Duffy, a physical therapist at the Akron General Health and Wellness Center -- West at 4125 Medina Rd. in Akron, said many of the patients who come to him “are 50, 60, 70 years of age; a lot of times they slip, they fall and they’ll twist their ankle or they’ll fall and put their arm out and fracture a wrist, or sometimes they’ll jam their shoulders a little bit. That’s relatively common every winter.”

He said spinal injuries are generally rare for these types of slips and falls, although they do happen.

For a wrist injury, the patient would see a wrist and hand occupational therapy specialist. “She’ll do some motion and strengthening, and finger opposition exercises, just to get the hand functional again so they can eat, wash their hair, things like that -- daily activity training for the wrist and hand,” Duffy said.

 Time and frequency of rehab varies, depending on the patient’s needs and, for many patients, how much therapy their insurance will cover. “I’d say on average it’s about 12 visits,” Duffy said. “Three times a week for four weeks would be average. Some people, if it’s a more involved injury, may need it for three or four months.”

Duffy has four or five patients that he treats regularly now. He said it’s difficult to pinpoint how many patients come through an ER or physical therapy specifically because of a snow- or ice-related incident. That particular information isn’t usually taken when patients are scheduled for treatment.  

 “We really don’t find out how it happened until the specific therapist gets that patient back and does the initial evaluation: ‘Tell me what’s going on?’ That’s when we find out exactly how it happened.”

Fall leads to discovery, recovery

Dave Thomas of Cuyahoga Falls had stepped out to fetch the newspaper the morning of Dec. 29 when he slipped on some ice on his driveway.

“I landed square on my back. According to the neurosurgeon, I had a whiplash injury and split the back of my head.”

The cut on his head didn’t look too serious.

“But I had very, very intense burning sensations down both arms, about like the worst sunburn you’ve ever had, doubled. So we went to the emergency room.”  

After a CAT scan was made, Thomas said, the staff discovered that he had a stenosis, an unusual narrowing in his spine. “Basically I had bad discs, degenerative arthritis.”

“I didn’t know I had it,” Thomas said. “So falling on my head was actually a good thing. Unfortunately it hurt those things enough that I almost immediately needed surgery. Falling damaged my spinal cord a bit.”

The surgery stabilized the damaged area in Thomas’ neck and prevented what would have probably resulted in quadriplegic paralysis eventually.

Then came physical therapy at Summa Western Reserve Hospital rehab center at the Natatorium Health and Fitness Center in Cuyahoga Falls.

“When I came in here (to the rehab center), I literally could not raise my arm more than (waist) high. Now I can go all the way up. So eight weeks of PT has done a lot of good. It’s brought it back a long way. A lot further than we expected.”

“I still have some residual weakness in the left leg, left arm; that may or may not ever come back, I don’t know. But it’s better than I expected already.”

Summa’s Blanda said, “We’re trying to encourage people to do physical rehabilitation and exercise when they’re recovering. I think it’s challenging for patients now as their (insurance) co-pays have gotten bigger, and sometimes for (patients) to see the importance of that. But that is important.”