In: Anatomy and Physiology
A student was demonstrating that because of an injury she was only able to turn her hand over (supinate) half as far as her friends were able. As a child she fractured her left forearm through the midshaft of the radius, although the ulna was spared. Why would this cause her to not be able to turn her hand over as far as her friends are able to do?
Supination and pronation are movements which occur at the radio-ulnar joint. The muscles producing these movements are attached to the forearm bones, and are responsible for the rotational displacement of these fractures. The supinators of the forearm (biceps and Supinator) are attached to the radius in its proximal third. The pronators (pronator teres and pronator quadratus) are attached to the middle and distal thirds of the radius respectively . this means that the supinators is control the proximal half of the forearm whereas the pronators controls the distal half.
Therefore in fractures of the proximal third of the fore arm bones, the proximal half of the forearm has only supinators attached to it and is supinated. The distal half on the other hand is pronated.
In fractures of middle third, both the proximal and the distal half of the forearm are in midpronation. Therefore, there occurs a limitation in the supination.