Opinions

Abstract

The hand is widely used in sports gestures and contributes to their technical efficacy. However, because of its anatomical position, it is exposed to frontal injuries and readily absorbs any initial contact. The hand evenly absorbs the strikes exercised on a racket, ball or golf club, which leads from an overexposition up to technopathies and “overuse syndromes”. Despite this critical role, the severity of hand injuries is more than often underestimated under the pretext that it only rarely affects the abilities of the athlete, who can become accustomed to some discomfort or loss of mobility. Moreover, the healing time is often protracted, and the rehabilitation period is tedious, restrictive and not conducive to the athlete’s motivation or the coach’s patience. For these reasons, therapeutic abandonment and other more radical solutions are still often promoted, their only aim being the quickest return of the player on the field at the expense of his own health and/or physical integrity. In this regard, we can report the case of Brett Backwell, an Australian football player who preferred the amputation of his fourth finger to a longer anatomical reconstruction protocol after a phalangeal fracture (Fig. 13.1). Although this radical strategy indeed allowed for his rapid return to the field, it would not have been offered to any other patient as first-line treatment!