Hand and wrist injuries in tennis, golf, baseball, and basketball players often become chronic due to athletes’ reluctance to seek medical attention, the abundance of inaccurate diagnoses, and inadequate treatments that result in a severely impaired wrist.
Because of the delicate nature of the surgery, an expert in these procedures must be involved in the treatment to ensure an accurate diagnosis, noted Alejandro Badia, a hand and upper extremity surgeon at the Miami Hand Center, who attended the Mexican Association of Orthopedics and Traumatology Congress recently held in Cancún.
“Due to its anatomical characteristics, the wrist is a very delicate area to operate on, but arthroscopy, a surgical procedure in which the inside of the joints is visualized using an instrument about the thickness of a pen, is an accurate method that, when used correctly, can diagnose even subtle injuries,” he explained.
This contrasts with the standard surgical technique, which can result in scarring and a prolonged recovery. The technique has also proven successful in knee and shoulder surgeries.
Qualified Surgeons: When surgery is necessary, it must be accompanied by appropriate therapy so the athlete regains full movement in their hand. I’ve had athletes visit me who had never seen an expert who understood how the wrist works, and that’s a problem. One of the injuries I see most frequently is cartilage that’s out of place; in this case, a series of sutures are placed arthroscopically without needing to open the tissue.” The cost of this type of procedure depends on several factors, such as the operating room used, Badia explained. “The Miami Hand Center is a hospital that treats many foreign patients; it has operating rooms in the same office, so the costs are lower than in a larger facility. I travel throughout Latin America and train surgeons from all the countries, but in Mexico there’s little contact, and these types of procedures are performed by plastic surgeons, and although they are very good at other things, they don’t have basic training in arthroscopy,” he asserted.
Español 
English 