What are the Ottawa ankle rules?
Ottawa ankle rules are a number of instructions used by doctors to assess patients with leg and ankle pain to determine whether X -rays are necessary. These instructions were developed in Canada Ottawa by a group of doctors who were afraid of unnecessary X -rays of legs and ankle. Before developing accurate and sensitive screening methods, most patients who showed foot and ankle pain, X -ray for fracture control. Only a small percentage of these patients had fractures, which made X -rays of the sources, except for health risk in patients.
Under the Ottawa rules, if the patient has, the bone importance of the bone excellent ankle or the lower part of the tibia. Likewise, if the patient cannot bring weight or walk for more than four steps, a fracture may occur. This simple screen rarely leads to false negatives significantly reduces the number of X -rays of ankle ordered for patients. Patients who have the sensitivity of the bones in the mediumsweat, they cannot weight on a damaged leg or cannot walk after more than four steps, candidates for X -rays. The Ottawa ankle rules were later modified to create a similar set of knee instructions known as Ottawa's knee rules.
The use of Ottawa Ankle rules has a number of advantages. Doctors who work in emergency rooms must be able to quickly and accurately test patients for major health problems to ensure that these problems are caught without ordering unnecessary tests. Ordering the patient for X -ray, if necessary, creates additional costs, keeps the patient in the hospital for longer, connects the X -ray equipment and exposes the patient to the patient because each X -ray exposes the patient the radiation. Development of rules that could be used to exclude people who apparently did not have fractures made the emergency rooms and improved the quality of PA carecient.
Ottawa ankle rules are not applied in situations where it is clear that the patient has a fracture. For example, open ankle and leg fractures are very easily identifiable and the patient can be immediately sent to an X -ray to assess the fracture for the development of the therapeutic plan. Similarly, other symptoms for telling about the fracture of the legs and ankle, such as a physically impossible angle, will lead a doctor to skip the evaluation and ordering of X -ray.