Splints as Good as Plaster Casts for Minor ...(one at home with no further follow-up. ...),Health

Plaster casts that parents could remove at home also performed as well as traditional casts, and parents preferred these more, the researchers said. Children and parents also preferred the removable Futura-brand splint, which was less expensive and less restrictive.

Benson agreed with the reviews conclusions in theory, but not in practice.

"My experience is that the younger child's pain decreases dramatically more quickly with plaster casting than a splint, and adolescents in splints often remove them around their friends, because they find them embarrassing," said Benson, who is also an associate clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "With a plaster cast, everyone can sleep at night; nothing can make that cast fall off. Yes, having a plaster cast for a few weeks is a hassle in ways, though it is possible to cover it and bathe or shower. But for the whole child and the whole family, it is a more reasonable treatment."

Benson also said the economic implication of the findings could give parents no option that offered them peace of mind: "A review like this could be used, in the U.K. system, to force people to use cheaper splinting methods of treatment rather than have a choice for plaster-casting for their child for reasons beyond narrow measures of clinical efficacy. This would be unfortunate."

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SOURCE: Center for the Advancement of Health, news release, April 15, 2008