Malleolar Fracture

What does a post lateral malleolar fracture patient look like?

Can you say loss of proprioception? Can you say loss of triceps surae strength? Can you say loss of hip abductor strength?

Whenever we have a fracture and that segment is subsequently immobilized, we usually have damage to joint and muscle Mechanoreceptors as well as some atrophy of the receptors because of the immobilization. Lucky for us, and this patient in particular, those changes are rapidly reversed due largely to initially neural adaptation which is responsible for most of the early strength changes and then later, after a few weeks, muscular hypertrophy.