Chest Contusion: Care Instructions (2024)

FAQs

Chest Contusion: Care Instructions? ›

Stop, change, or take a break from any activity that may be causing your pain. Put ice or a cold pack on the area for 10 to 20 minutes at a time. Put a thin cloth between the ice and your skin. After 2 or 3 days, if your swelling is gone, apply a heating pad set on low or a warm cloth to your chest.

For minor cases of chest contusions, recovery times may last between four to six weeks. More serious occurrences of chest contusions, such as when broken or fractured bones are present, may lead to more permanent damage (difficulty breathing, irregular breathing/heart rate, etc.).

Some chest contusions can also prevent one side of the chest from moving, making it quite hard to breathe deeply. Bruising of the heart: A myocardial contusion or bruising to the heart can constrict the heart's ability to pump blood and in severe cases can result in death.

Try to sleep in a comfortable semi-upright position for the first few nights. You can do this by placing a few pillows under your neck and upper back. This position will help you breathe more comfortably. Begin to sleep on your unaffected side after the first few days of injury.

Minor contusions typically heal on their own without medical intervention. Patients may simply need to rest and take some time off of work. If your chest contusion is serious enough to impact your breathing, you may need oxygen or ventilation. Serious injuries caused by contusions are often treated surgically.

In some cases this laboured breathing persists throughout the life of the patient. Chronic pulmonary disease may also develop as a consequence of severe contusion. Four years after the injury, the functional residual capacity of the lung decreases in the majority of contused patients.

A contusion happens when small blood vessels are damaged due to trauma, such as an impact from a car accident. This trauma causes blood to leak out into the tissues under the skin causing discoloration or purple-blue bruises to appear on the chest area.

Injury to the chest wall may result in pain, tenderness, bruising, and swelling. It may also result in broken ribs and injured muscles. These cause pain, often during breathing.

Do contusions get worse over time? ›

Sometimes a bruise gets worse instead of better. It may become larger and more swollen. This can occur when your body walls off a small pool of blood under the skin (hematoma). In very rare cases, your doctor may need to drain extra blood from the area.

Contusions generally take 2-3 weeks depending on the graded severity of the injury. Approximately: Mild – 13 days, Moderate – 19 days, Severe – 21 days.

A pulmonary contusion is a bruise of a lung, which causes bleeding and swelling. People have pain, usually due to the chest wall injury, and often feel short of breath.

Exacerbated brain damage can lead to cognitive and motor function disability or even death. An untreated head injury can also lead to progressive overall declines in brain health, along with many different associated symptoms.

Do not massage the injured area. During the first 24 to 48 hours after injury (acute phase), you will probably need to continue using rest, ice, compression bandages, and elevation of the injured area to control bleeding, swelling, and pain.

The bruise does not improve within two weeks or completely clear after 3-4 weeks. The bruise is painful and underneath a fingernail or toenail. If you suspect that you might also have broken a bone. If you have a bruise around the eye and your vision is affected or you cannot move your eye in all directions.

Damage may be to the chest wall — the bones (including ribs and sternum), skin, fat and muscles protecting your lungs — or any of the organs inside the chest (for example the heart or lungs). Chest injuries can be minor, such as bruising, or serious problems that need urgent medical attention.

Numbness or weakness anywhere in the injured limb. Swelling around the bruised skin. Loss of function in the affected area (joint, limb or muscle) Increased size or density.