Current club: SuperSport United
Injury: Broken arm
Soccer Laduma injury brief:
SuperSport United’s centre back, Clayton Daniels, suffered a broken arm when training with his club, shortly after returning from international duty with Bafana Bafana.
Attending Physio: Russel Looms BHMS Hons (Biokinetics), EPT Recovery Centre
The Physio says:
Obviously, with a broken arm, you need to go and get medical assistance, when they will normally do an X-ray to determine where the break is. Thereafter, nine out of 10 times, you will go into a cast, either waterproof or your normal plaster of Paris. During the injury, surrounding muscles are often affected, resulting in further pain.
Recommended rehab exercise:
You will have muscle wastage, so you need to start doing electrical muscle stimulation and then you should exercise with the use of an elastic band, doing range-of-motion exercises. During the rehabilitation process, Deep Heat can be applied to alleviate any muscle pains associated with the break.
Estimated time of recovery:
It depends on the severity of damage or break, but in a cast you can be out for weeks on end. Certain bones have different healing time frames, so it all depends on if the bone has knitted. So you’re looking at anything from eight to 12 weeks.
How to prevent this injury from recurring:
When the cast comes off, you definitely need to get into a rehabilitation program, but it’s impossible to keep this injury from recurring as a break can happen at any time. A break is an impact trauma and you can’t stop a player from colliding into you, so it’s difficult. But, as a player, you should work on your spatial awareness and be aware of where your opponents are. You should just be cautious when diving into tackles. After recovery, any associated muscle pain that may occur can be lessened with the use of Deep Heat.
Notable players who suffered this injury in the past:
• Ryan Giggs
• Luisão
• Ezequiel Lavezzi
